Poet and performer Jeremy Reed teams with experimental harpist MC & The 7 Pedals to produce a dynamic duo. The duo brings together the urban worlds that Jeremy creates with his poems and the London avant-garde music scene creating a brilliantly realised synthesis. Jeremy’s unique performance style is fused with Maria-Christina’s powerful and experimental playing on her harp.
Maria-Christina Harper
Maria-Christina is an award winning, London based, experimental electric harp player who creates compositions using loop, wah and distortion pedal effects. She is the first prize winner of the Wales International Harp Competition (2010) performing her own compositions on the electric harp. MC studied the harp with an entrance scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music.
She uses bows and guitar sliders to make the instrument emulate bass, percussive and guitarlike tones. In 2012 MC formed her solo project MC & The 7 Pedals and recently released her album “Gluten free” under Valentine Records (UK). The resulting music is cinematic, dreamlike and highly atmospheric as it seamlessly blends traditional and avant garde techniques to create mesmerising new forms.
She has previously performed on Later with Jools Holland on BBC2, at the BBC Radio 1 studios and at the Montreal Jazz Festival. She has also appeared at the Royal Festival Hall, the National Portrait Gallery and at many major venues all over Europe. Additionally, Maria‐Christina has toured or collaborated with many artists including Katie Melua, Soft Cell, Anni Hogan, Alani, Potent Whisper, Jeremy Reed, Pete Long, Richard Strange and Psarantonis.
www.mcandthe7pedals.com
Jeremy Reed
Jeremy Reed is a pioneering poet, novelist, biographer and astounding performer of his poetry. He has published over 50 books as well as writing librettos for the pop genius Marc Almond. JG Ballard called his poetry ‘almost extraterrestrial in its brilliance and fuelled by the most exotic juices the imagination has ever devised.’ He has written more than two dozen books of poetry, 12 novels, and volumes of literary and music criticism. His work has been translated abroad in more than a dozen languages. He has received awards from Somerset Maugham, Eric Gregory, Ingram Merrill, Royal Literary Fund and the Arts Council. He has also won the Poetry Society’s European Translation Prize.
He has collaborated with the musician Itchy Ear and the experimental harpist MC & The 7 Pedals. They perform live under the name The Ginger Light. The Ginger Light regularly perform at The National Portrait Gallery, London and The Horse Hospital, London. Their 2012 album, Big City Dilemma, was described as “a trippy comedown machine, taking you by your collar and dragging you along London pavements”.
www.jeremyreed.co.uk
Door 19:30 | performance 20:00 | entry £6
