Door 3.30pm | music 4pm | entry £5
Sylvia Hallett
Sylvia Hallett is a multi-instrumentalist and composer moving between violin, Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, saw, accordion, electronics and found objects. She currently plays with The London Improvisers Orchestra and h2dance company, where she is resident composer. Recent collaborators have included Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, David Toop, Jah Wobble, Anna Homler, LaXula, Opera North, Wonderful Beast, Miranda Tufnell, Eva Karczag, and The Royal Shakespeare Company. She performs internationally as a solo improviser, having released three solo albums, and pops up regularly on the soundtrack of BBC TV’s Silent Witness. In July 2015 she was commissioned by the Livio Felluga Wine Company to create and perform a solo site-specific work on a hill in an Italian vineyard.
David Toop
David Toop is a composer/musician, author and curator based in London who has worked in many fields of sound art and music, including improvisation, sound installations, field recordings, pop music production, music for television, theatre and dance. He has recorded Yanomami shamanism in Amazonas, appeared on Top of the Pops, exhibited sound installations in Tokyo, Beijing and London’s National Gallery, and performed with artists ranging from John Zorn, Evan Parker, Bob Cobbing and Ivor Cutler to Akio Suzuki, Elaine Mitchener, Lore Lixenberg and Max Eastley. As a critic he has written for publications including The Wire, The Face, Leonardo Music Journal and Bookforum. Exhibitions he has curated include Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery, London John Cage at Arnolfini, Bristol, and Blow Up at Flat-Time House, London. His books include Ocean of Sound, Haunted Weather, and Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener, and he also released the solo albums Screen Ceremonies, Black Chamber and Sound Body. His most recent book is Maelstrom: Improvisation, Music and the Dream of Freedom.
Billy Steiger
Billy Steiger was born in Howth, Ireland on the 16th December, 1986. Now he plays magical realist violin music. “Then he sat down by a pond and began to play a tune. As he played, the most extraordinary thing happened. One by one the fish in the pond began to jump out and fly about in the air. And what is more, they were all different colours and they were singing to the music.” Patrick, Quentin Blake.
Douglas Benford
Composer and sound artist Douglas Benford has been involved in various audio genres since the late 1980s, performing at institutions in the UK (Bristol’s Arnolfini, London’s Science Museum, Tate Modern, The Roundhouse, ICA and Glasgow’s CCA), festivals worldwide (Mutek, Synch, Transmediale) and has had work in numerous UK galleries (London, Swansea, Birmingham, Gloucestershire and Essex). After numerous electronica releases in his ‘si-cut.db’ guise, in the past decade he has focused on acoustic improvisation and installations, using field recordings, classical instruments, vocals, domestic objects and children’s toys. His regular collaborators include Blanca Regina, poet Tamar Yoseloff, Angharad Davies, Lina Lapelyte, Steve Beresford, sculptor Rob Olins, as well as – in the past – pop group Saint Etienne, Jem Finer (The Pogues), Momus, Rod Thomas (Bright Light Bright Light), Scanner, Stephan Mathieu and Andrew Weatherall. He is also co-curator with Iris Garrelfs, since 1996, of Sprawl audio events in London.