John Lely : Part Music for Violin and Double Bass. Sunday 2nd July 7:30pm

John Lely: Part Music for Violin and Double Bass performed by Mira Benjamin (violin) and Michael Francis Duch (double bass)

Doors 7:30 | performance 8pm | entry £5

Since 2014 John Lely has been working with string soloists to develop a set of pieces that may be performed simultaneously in any combination. These pieces focus on sustained string harmonics in combination with quiet tuned noise sources.

The solo version with Mira Benjamin, Part Music for Violin, was completed in 2014 and given its first performances in Sheffield, UK and Victoria, Canada. The solo version with Michael Duch, Part Music for Double Bass, was completed earlier this year, and given its first outing at the Borealis Festival in Bergen, Norway, with subsequent performances in Svalbard, Tønsberg, Cape Town, Trondheim and Reykjavik.

For this concert Michael is joined by Mira for the first simultaneous realisation of the violin and double bass versions of Part Music.

Mira Benjamin is a Canadian violinist, researcher and new-music instigator.

She performs new and experimental music, with a special interest in microtonality & tuning practice. She actively commissions music from composers at all stages of their careers, and develops each new work through multiple performances. Current collaborations include new works by James Weeks, Gyrid Nordal Kaldestad, Scott Mc Laughlin, Cobi van Tonder, and Taylor Brook.

Since 2011, Mira has co-directed NU:NORD – a project-based music and performance network which instigates artistic exchanges and encourages community building between music creators from Canada, Norway & the UK. To date NU:NORD has engaged 79 artists and commissioned 62 new works. Through this initiative, Mira hopes to offer a foundation from which Canadian artists can reach out to artistic communities overseas, and provide a conduit through which UK & Norwegian artists can access Canada’s rich art culture.

Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Mira lived for ten years in Montréal, where she was a member of Quatuor Bozzini. Since 2014 she has resided in London (UK), where she regularly performs with ensembles such as Apartment House and Decibel, and is currently the Duncan Druce Scholar in Music Performance at the University of Huddersfield.

Mira was the recipient of the 2016 Virginia Parker Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts. The prize is awarded annually to a Canadian musician in recognition of their contribution to the artistic life in Canada and internationally.
http://mirabenjamin.com

Michael Francis Duch is a Norwegian bass player and Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
He has been involved in more than 50 recordings released in various formats, including two solo albums, and has played concerts in Europe, Asia and North America.

Michael Francis Duch plays in a trio with Rhodri Davies and John Tilbury, the rockband Dog & Sky, the improvquartet LEMUR with Bjørnar Habbestad, Hild Sofie Tafjord and Lene Grenager and various other constellations. Ad Hoc collaborations include Pauline Oliveros, Mats Gustafsson, Christian Wolff, Tony Conrad, Joëlle Léandre, amongst others.

He completed his project “Free Improvisation – Method and Genre: Artistic Research in Free Improvisation and Improvisation in Experimental Music” as a research-fellow at NTNU late October 2010.
http://www.michaelduch.no

John Lely a composer and musician based in London, UK. He writes music and words, plays objects and electronics, and curates music events.

He is interested in the variety of sounds, correspondences and experiences that can emerge through the use of limited sets of musical building blocks. His pieces explore sound, silence, proportion, process, perception and listening.

He is co-author, with James Saunders, of Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation (Continuum 2012), a book about text scores.

Together with composers Tim Parkinson and Markus Trunk, he curates Music We’d Like to Hear, a concert series described by TEMPO as ‘an oasis of thoughtful and idealistic music-making’.
http://johnlely.co.uk

Commissions supported by Britten-Pears Foundation and Arts Council Norway.

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