https://lcmf.co.uk LCMF Sat, 02 Aug 2025 10:33:25 +0000 https://lcmf.co.uk en https://lcmf.co.uk/20-Nov-Walshe-Barlow-Darboven-Nancarrow Wed, 23 Jul 2025 16:52:30 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/20-Nov-Walshe-Barlow-Darboven-Nancarrow LCMF x Wigmore Hall20 November 2025 THE ARTIST IS NOT PRESENTWigmore Hall <img width="2048" height="1242" width_o="2048" height_o="1242" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/22521bcba6e73050ffa208cae7f0bee4e38c8433f190ac74bed7010cf532f1f6/16WHITNEY-superJumbo.jpg" data-mid="236188516" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/22521bcba6e73050ffa208cae7f0bee4e38c8433f190ac74bed7010cf532f1f6/16WHITNEY-superJumbo.jpg" /> Conlon Nancarrow Studies for Player Piano (1948-1970)Nos 3a, 20, 25W.A. Mozart (attrib.) Instructions for the composition of as many waltzes as one desires with two dice, without understanding anything about music or composition (1792) C.P.E. Bach A method for making six bars of double counterpoint at the octave without knowing the rules (1757) Antonio Calegari Game of Pythagorean Music (1801)Eyleif Mullen-White At the Academy of Projectors (1972)(world premiere)Hanne Darboven Opus 17a (1984)(world premiere version for drum kit) INTERVALConlon Nancarrow Studies for Player Piano (1948-1970)Nos 12 and 36Caoimhín Breathnach Breathnóir (2007)(world premiere) Jennifer Walshe Slop Studies 2#a-7 (2025)(world premiere)(LCMF/Wigmore Hall co-commission)Clarence Barlow Im Januar am Nil (1981-84) Artists:Explore Ensemble Jennifer Walshe voice George Barton drums&nbsp; Dominic Murcott player piano Read our preview feature in the Financial Times The London Contemporary Music Festival returns to the Wigmore Hall with a programme that charts the way composers have engaged with AI-adjacent ideas over the centuries. Moving from the age of Mozart to the modern day, we show how startling, amusing and even moving music can be when composers reject the ego and embrace the algorithmic. Explore Ensemble&nbsp;and percussionist George Barton will showcase the extraordinary work of two cult figures from the world of computational music: Im Januar am Nil (1981-84) by composer Clarence Barlow (1945-2023) and Opus 17a (1984), in a new version for drum kit, by the artist Hanne Darboven (1941-2009). Composer Dominic Murcott will present several wild contrapuntal works from the 1940s-1970s for player piano by the great Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) (on a replica of Nancarrow's own player piano). And Jennifer Walshe (b.1974)&nbsp;will return with a new commission for voice and ensemble, Slop Studies 2#a-7, plus works by two mysterious Irish composers Eyleif Mullen-White (1937-1988) and Caoimhín Breathnach (1934-2009), both algorithmic pioneers. We begin, however, with W.A Mozart (1756-1791),&nbsp;C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) and Antonio Calegari (1757-1828), presenting an extremely rare outing of a selection of Musikalisches Würfelspiele (Musical Dice-Games), early examples of procedural composition that took the Enlightenment by storm. https://lcmf.co.uk/About-5 Sat, 02 Aug 2025 10:33:25 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/About-5 Subscribe to our mailing list: <img width="3508" height="3652" width_o="3508" height_o="3652" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" data-mid="236590366" border="0" data-scale="21" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" /> ‘The capital’s most adventurous and ambitious festival of new music’ The Guardian‘London’s most important festival’ The Wire‘Vastly ambitious and massively popular’ The Daily Telegraph ‘Adventurous and provocative’ The New York Times The London Contemporary Music Festival (LCMF)&nbsp;was founded in 2013 to provide a home for the promiscuous music lover. Since then we’ve presented 10 critically-acclaimed multidisciplinary festivals and premiered over 100 works. Artists who we have commissioned and hosted, or whose works we’ve premiered, include: Cosey Fanni Tutti, Eliane Radigue, Julius Eastman, Cerith Wyn Evans, Roscoe Mitchell, Pauline Oliveros, Mica Levi, Lina Lapelyte, Tony Conrad, Klein, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jennifer Walshe, Yvonne Rainer, Charlemagne Palestine, Elaine Mitchener, EVOL, Rebecca Saunders, Glenn Branca, Moor Mother, Ed Atkins, Annea Lockwood, John Giorno, Laraaji, Timothy Morton, Amalia Ulman, Bhanu Kapil, Toby Jones, Nkisi, Gábor Lázár, Maryanne Amacher, Laurence Crane, Cassandra Miller, CA Conrad, Christian Marclay, Joan La Barbara, Fatima Al Qadiri, Morton Subotnick, Maggie Nicols, Gerald Barry, Katalin Ladik, Rashad Becker, Tyshawn Sorey, James Ferraro, Anne Bean, Ragnar Kjartansson, Pan Daijing, Robert Ashley, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sophia Al-Maria, Michael Finnissy, Mark Leckey.&nbsp; In 2016 we curated the world’s first retrospective dedicated to the work of composer Julius Eastman. In 2018 we founded the LCMF Orchestra, dedicated to commissioning work by composers who’d never written for the orchestra before, to those whose work rarely gets heard in Britain and to ambitious, spatialised orchestral pieces.&nbsp;In 2022 we became a charity and a biennial. In 2025, at the Wigmore Hall, we presented one concert, exploring the pre-history of AI-adjacent music. Our next full-length festival will be in winter 2026. Complete artist/performer archive<img width="3508" height="3652" width_o="3508" height_o="3652" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" data-mid="236590366" border="0" data-scale="19" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" /> LCMF is currently run by writer/curator Igor Toronyi-Lalic and composer/conductor Jack Sheen. Our board of trustees are: Igor Toronyi-Lalic (chair) Selvi May AkyildizCornelia Grassi Valéry Grégo Elaine Mitchener Past events: LCMF 2024 LCMF x Hôtel Couvent, Nice (2023) LCMF 2022 LCMF x Cabinet Gallery (2021) LCMF x Whitechapel Gallery (2020) LCMF 2019 LCMF 2018 LCMF 2017 Julius Eastman (2016) LCMF 2015 LCMF 2014 Bernard Parmegiani (2014) LCMF 2013 In 2020, in association with Whitechapel Gallery, we presented a night of performances online by Elaine Mitchener, Himali Singh Soin, Christopher Kirubi, Oliver Leith and Elvin Brandhi.<img width="3508" height="3652" width_o="3508" height_o="3652" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" data-mid="236590366" border="0" data-scale="19" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" /> For press, advertising and&nbsp;sponsorship enquiries, contact: lcmf@lcmf.co.uk #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:100%;} /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe to our mailing list Special thanks to artist Emily Tilzey for designing the LCMF logo https://lcmf.co.uk/LCMF-2024-LET-S-CREATE Mon, 16 Sep 2024 16:29:47 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/LCMF-2024-LET-S-CREATE &nbsp; LCMF 2024LET’S CREATE30 Nov 2024 – 17 Jan 2025 Camden Art Centre | Hackney Church |&nbsp;Wigmore Hall 🦊 Two concerts from this festival will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show. Sign up to our mailing list and we’ll let you know the broadcast date as soon as we do.&nbsp; Charlemagne Palestine / aya / Éliane Radigue+Carol Robinson / Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster /&nbsp;EVOL / Amalia Ulman / Laurence Crane / ∈Y∋+C.O.L.O&nbsp; / Yves Klein / Russell Haswell / Coldplay /&nbsp;Beatriz Ferreyra / Maggie Nicols / Pauline Oliveros /&nbsp;Jon Rafman / Sofia Jernberg&nbsp;/ Luigi Russolo / Matt Copson / Viola Torros /&nbsp;Steve Beresford+Edward George+Maggie Nicols / Peter Ablinger / Dengbêj Ali Tekbaş / Edward Henderson / Lisa Streich / Jack O’Brien+Laure M. Hiendl / Chris Newman / Irish Dada poetry /&nbsp;Plato /&nbsp;Jennifer Walshe+Tony Conrad / Catherine Lamb+Johnny Chang / Fox Maxy /&nbsp;Charles Ives /&nbsp;Joanna Ward+Laurie Ward / Philip Corner / Laurie Tompkins / Yoko Ono / Dean Kissick /&nbsp;Andy Ingamells+Yseult Cooper Stockdale / Mieko Shiomi / James Clarke / Adam de la Cour / Laila Arafah&nbsp;/&nbsp;Jennifer Walshe / dove/Christine Kirubi+Shenece Oretha /&nbsp;Andrew Hamilton /&nbsp;Dermot O’Reilly / Margareth Kammerer / Pablo Ortiz / Paolo Buzzi / Luciano Chessa / Teho Teardo /&nbsp;Lore Lixenberg / Mark Knoop / Neil Luck / Alwynne Pritchard / Patricia Auchterlonie / Alan Witts / Cameron Dodds /&nbsp;Sarah Parkin / Angela Wai Nok Hui / Matt Rogers / Melinda Maxwell / Sam Andreae /&nbsp;Tara Cunningham / Gwen Reed / Theo Guttenplan /&nbsp;Murat Savaş /&nbsp;Brian Sheridan+Toshiro Sawa /&nbsp;Jack Sheen /&nbsp;Ensemble Klang / Apartment House / Explore Ensemble / Musarc /&nbsp;Octandre Ensemble /&nbsp;The Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners / The New Music Society of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama /&nbsp;LCMF Orchestra https://lcmf.co.uk/LIMITED-EDITION-MERCH Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:32:32 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/LIMITED-EDITION-MERCH <img width="1002" height="564" width_o="1002" height_o="564" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7623f58e4442176483ad3590c7d181672d38a64a5419232fd368b2c5c34510b6/Screenshot-2024-12-01-at-12.36.09.png" data-mid="222695854" border="0" data-scale="33" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7623f58e4442176483ad3590c7d181672d38a64a5419232fd368b2c5c34510b6/Screenshot-2024-12-01-at-12.36.09.png" /> LCMF 10th ANNIVERSARY LIMITED EDITION MERCH <img width="1512" height="1512" width_o="1512" height_o="1512" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0020cf9f4ef82617e7c990c84b8ab412d8f96e4ae54a5c197ca5ffb043eb37b6/IMG_4201.JPG" data-mid="222695846" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0020cf9f4ef82617e7c990c84b8ab412d8f96e4ae54a5c197ca5ffb043eb37b6/IMG_4201.JPG" /> <img width="1179" height="1196" width_o="1179" height_o="1196" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e92e268af30f5050605d185d8eeaa0ae064b7921c5b144ebb938e69690e6eadb/image2.jpeg" data-mid="222695982" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e92e268af30f5050605d185d8eeaa0ae064b7921c5b144ebb938e69690e6eadb/image2.jpeg" /> https://lcmf.co.uk/About-4 Sat, 28 Sep 2024 15:53:06 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/About-4 LCMF 2024LET’S CREATE <img width="565" height="727" width_o="565" height_o="727" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/937c3ff282b5ac93237ccd80a31ef00e8694c17e8debb9ea2f582ad70baac117/Reynard-the-fox.jpg" data-mid="219453838" border="0" data-scale="97" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/565/i/937c3ff282b5ac93237ccd80a31ef00e8694c17e8debb9ea2f582ad70baac117/Reynard-the-fox.jpg" /> ‘To commit to the bit is to play it straight – that is, to take it seriously. A bit may be fantastical, but the seriousness required to commit to it is always real... That’s what makes the bit funny: the fact that, for the comic, it isn’t.’ – from Females by Andrea Long Chu Where would we be without the trickster? Shapeshifter, border-crosser, mischief-maker, lord of misrule, god of the in-between, catcher of contingency, vandal, joker: they are our guide, our patron saint, our aesthetic saviour. For our 10th anniversary we turn to them: Reynard, Eshu, Coyote, Raven, Hermes, Loki, Brer Rabbit, Anansi. Call them what you will. You shall know them by their fruits.And look what gleaming tools they possess for tripwiring reality. Through nearly 50 premieres and new commissions, exploring pranking, trolling and committing to the bit, obstinacy and obstruction, deception and cheek, shitpost modernism and omnicringe – via AI movies, pantos, a monotone symphony, a noise opera and the last sounds Plato heard – LET’S CREATE will celebrate the trickster spirit in music, art and film. Let our Reynards shepherd you to the sunny uplands. Read music critic Eduard Hanslick’s response to our 10th anniversary programme. <img width="3508" height="3652" width_o="3508" height_o="3652" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" data-mid="218845865" border="0" data-scale="37" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" /> ‘The capital’s most adventurous and ambitious festival of new music’ The Guardian‘London’s most important festival’ The Wire‘Vastly ambitious and massively popular’ The Daily Telegraph LCMF&nbsp;was founded in 2013 to provide a home for the promiscuous music lover. Since then we’ve presented nine critically-acclaimed multidisciplinary festivals and premiered over 100 works.&nbsp;Artists who we have commissioned and hosted, or whose works we’ve premiered, include: Cosey Fanni Tutti, Julius Eastman, Cerith Wyn Evans, Roscoe Mitchell, Pauline Oliveros, Mica Levi, Lina Lapelytė, Tony Conrad, Klein, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jennifer Walshe, Yvonne Rainer, Charlemagne Palestine, Elaine Mitchener, Rebecca Saunders, Glenn Branca, Moor Mother, Ed Atkins, Annea Lockwood, John Giorno, Laraaji, Timothy Morton, Bhanu Kapil, Toby Jones, Nkisi, Gábor Lázár, Maryanne Amacher, Cassandra Miller, CA Conrad, Christian Marclay, Joan La Barbara, Fatima Al Qadiri, Morton Subotnick, Maggie Nicols, Gerald Barry, Katalin Ladik, Rashad Becker, Tyshawn Sorey, James Ferraro, Anne Bean, Ragnar Kjartansson, Pan Daijing, Robert Ashley, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sophia Al-Maria, Michael Finnissy, Mark Leckey.&nbsp; In 2016 we curated the world’s first retrospective dedicated to the work of composer Julius Eastman. In 2018 we founded the LCMF Orchestra, dedicated to commissioning work by composers who’d never written for the orchestra before; to those whose work rarely gets heard in Britain; and to ambitious, spatialised orchestral pieces.&nbsp; (Complete artist/performer archive here.)<img width="3508" height="3652" width_o="3508" height_o="3652" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" data-mid="218845865" border="0" data-scale="36" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ede7963ff279d86b6d12785eff5fe1774b7375fe6b6764afba1a6811d53d885/LCMF_NEW2.jpg" /> LCMF is run by writer/curator Igor Toronyi-Lalic and composer/conductor Jack Sheen. In 2021 we became a charity (no. 1193409). LCMF 2022&nbsp;was the ninth festival in nine years, following editions in 2013, 2014, 2015,&nbsp;2017,&nbsp;2018, 2019 and the world's first retrospectives of the composers Julius Eastman and Bernard Parmegiani. In 2020, in association with Whitechapel Gallery, we presented a night of performances online by Elaine Mitchener, Himali Singh Soin, Christopher Kirubi, Oliver Leith and Elvin Brandhi. In 2021, in association with Cabinet Gallery, we presented a complete reading of Ed Atkins’s novel Old Food (Fitzcarraldo), narrated by Toby Jones, at the Wigmore Hall. For press, advertising and&nbsp;sponsorship enquiries, contact: lcmf@lcmf.co.uk #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:100%;} /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe to our mailing list Special thanks to artist Emily Tilzey for designing the LCMF logo https://lcmf.co.uk/Hackney-Church Thu, 10 Oct 2024 20:18:39 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/Hackney-Church Hackney Church <img width="3000" height="2000" width_o="3000" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9d359ba352cb4c71ca0fd520ce4d2a1ab5fe53f4d28a03da01402ca6f519e3cd/klj_sjoh_interiors_12.05.21_shot01_072.jpg" data-mid="219563393" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9d359ba352cb4c71ca0fd520ce4d2a1ab5fe53f4d28a03da01402ca6f519e3cd/klj_sjoh_interiors_12.05.21_shot01_072.jpg" /> AddressHackney Church Lower Clapton Road London E5 0PD Telephone 0300 323 0343&nbsp; Email events@hackney.church Website hackney.church AccessWe welcome anyone with accessibility requirements and will endeavour to accommodate any needs you may have. Please get in touch prior to your visit so we can make sure the necessary arrangements are made, by emailing events@hackney.church GETTING HERE Public Transport Hackney Church is close to Hackney Central Overground Station, a short journey from Highbury &amp; Islington (Victoria Line) on the London Overground. We are served by many bus routes. Make sure to check the event times against TfL's Journey Planner or Citymapper for the latest travel updates and times. &nbsp; Parking There is parking available on the streets surrounding Hackney Church and on our grounds. Please visit hackney.gov.uk/visitor-parking for more information about parking locally. https://lcmf.co.uk/30-Nov-1-Dec-Jack-O-Brien-Laure-M-Hiendl Sun, 29 Sep 2024 16:06:30 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/30-Nov-1-Dec-Jack-O-Brien-Laure-M-Hiendl LCMF 202430 November &amp; 1 December: Jack O’Brien / Laure M. HiendlCamden Art Centre <img width="4961" height="3508" width_o="4961" height_o="3508" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bd97d5a354a104fc2fae7e19b526da8ce710eb15baaeaf20400f4ccc7f44d395/posterimage.jpg" data-mid="219374935" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bd97d5a354a104fc2fae7e19b526da8ce710eb15baaeaf20400f4ccc7f44d395/posterimage.jpg" /> Jack O’Brien / Laure M. Hiendl Chronochromatic Variations III (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF / Camden Arts Centre co-commission) Performers Octandre Ensemble: Federico Ceppetelli violin Chihiro Ono viola Elena Cappelletti cello ‘For it was Hermes who first made the tortoise a singer.’ – Hymn to Hermes The first artist to refashion a found object was the divine trickster Hermes. Waddling from his mother’s cave, the baby godling spied a turtle and turned it into a lyre; he chopped off its legs, scooped out its flesh, cast strings from its entrails, wired up its shell and started strumming. The mythical tricksters are all retoolers: scavengers, benevolentburglars, filching food and light and ideas. ‘Sometimes it happens that the road between heaven and earth is not open, whereupon trickster travels not as a messenger but as a thief, the one who steals from the gods the good things that humans need if they are to survive in this world’ (from Lewis Hyde’s&nbsp;Trickster Makes This World). The trickster is the guide and patron saint of LET’S CREATE, the London Contemporary Music Festival 10th anniversary edition. And in our opening event in partnership with Camden Art Centre, we bring together two artists who embody the trickster’s foraging spirit. In Jack O’Brien’s installation The Reward, the centrepiece of his exhibition, two pirouetting industrial staircases, swaddled in stockinette, lie side by side as if curled up in bed. Around this suspended couple, Laure M. Hiendl’s new commission, Chronochromatic Variations III, will play out, courtesy of three musicians from the Octandre Ensemble. What you will hear is late romantic landfill: a string trio by Anglo-Irish drunk E.J. Moeran (1894-1950) that’s been cut up, spliced, looped and stitched back together. Like with O’Brien’s work, we witness, in the words of writer Dominic Johnson, a ‘binding, squeezing, penetrating, stuffing, bulging, shredding’ of the source material, until it too becomes another pirouetting sculpture – but of sound and time. Hermes’s grandfather was Cronos, the Greek god of time. And Hiendl, in the word ‘Chronochromatic’, appears to be toying with him in this work. Moeran isn’t the only thing being repurposed: time has become timbre. The result is what Hiendl – borrowing from the philosopher Lauren Berlant – calls ‘an animated still life’. An uneasy, stuttering suspension of sound and metre that hints at the familiar shapes of English pastoralism but skews them to uncanny purpose. You feel cradled and caressed without there being any justification for it. The trickster’s reward – hypnotic as it is – is never a simple gift. https://lcmf.co.uk/11-December-Sorry Tue, 17 Sep 2024 12:37:21 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/11-December-Sorry LCMF 202411 December: SorryHackney Church <img width="526" height="750" width_o="526" height_o="750" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/41fa8705fe961f382a3805f81464f1c9eac4bb5a0f26e2b74312d1ba48c08a58/El_Santato_edited.jpg" data-mid="218554109" border="0" data-scale="82" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/526/i/41fa8705fe961f382a3805f81464f1c9eac4bb5a0f26e2b74312d1ba48c08a58/El_Santato_edited.jpg" />&nbsp; Philip Corner During This Concert the Hall will be bombed – or blown up (1969) &nbsp;(UK premiere)Russell Haswellthe truth is as elusive as ever (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF commission)(with BSL interpretation) INTERVAL Philip Corner An anti-personnel CBU-Type cluster bomb unit will be thrown into the audience (1969) (UK premiere) Laurie Tompkins The Feelmouth Greeny (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF commission)Viola Torrosnew found fragments (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF commission) Adam de la Cour Groyne ‘n’ Goosed (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF commission)&nbsp; INTERVAL Philip CornerAs soon as I finish speaking this hall will be struck by an intercontinental long-range rocket (2024) (world premiere) (LCMF commission) Matt Copson LET’S CREATE: PART 1 (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF commission) Jennifer Walshe A Glimpse Of the Art Basel from The Text Score Dataset 1.0 (2021)(world premiere)ayaaya plays the music of aya (2024)(world premiere)(LCMF commission) Performers: Dean Kissick (Corner)Russell HaswellRachel Jones sign-language interpreter (Haswell)Lena McKenna-Graham girl speaker (Haswell)Musarc chorus (Haswell, Walshe): Alice Watson, Anna Cséfalvay, Aranza Fernandez, Ashmi Thapar, Carol Mancke, Carolyn Roy, Clara Meyer, Dominic Thurston, Douglas Cape, Franziska Böhm , Hannah Archambault, Hélène Lomenech, Ivo Krankowski, Joanna Ward, Joseph Kohlmaier, Mariam Bergloff, Mia Damerum, Natalie Savva, Paul Martin, Rebecca Faulkner, Reuben Esterhuizen, Saori Miraku, Sophie Barshall, Stephen Graham, Zeina NasrLaurie Tompins vocalsSam Andreae saxophoneCatherine Lamb viola (Torros)Johnny Chang viola (Torros)Adam de la Cour’s panto Groyne ‘n’ Goosed: Adam de la Cour, Lore Lixenberg, Mark Knoop, Neil Luck, Alwynne Pritchard, Patricia Auchterlonie, Vicky Wright, Alan Witts, Cameron Dodds, Andy Ingamells, Sarah Parkin, Angela Wai Nok Hui, Matt Rogersaya ‘Transcendental Cringe is when something is so bad it tears a hole through the fabric of spectacle to reveal a pure imminent truth. You are not a $ubject. Can you feel the stillness of the universe, the stillness of others?This is what genesis looks like. Do you really think this song is about you?’ — Barrett Avner, ‘Finance Punk/Omnicringe Manifesto’, Covidian Aesthetics The opening night of this 10th anniversary edition of LCMF features a type of work that cannot be performed and mustn’t be performed – though unconscionably it is performed every year. Correct. Panto. The panto was once the epitome of popular European entertainment but has since retreated to these shores and now squats proudly in our theatres during winter, one of the most reviled forms in history, the Millwall of art. Tonight, composer Adam de la Cour reunites the panto with one of its closest and not much less despised relatives: experimental music. The mother of these two slippery worlds is the same: the vaudeville spectacles of the Edwardian age. (On 17 January 2025 at the Wigmore Hall we present the missing link: the world’s first experimental music, Luigi Russolo’s intonarumori, will be heard in Britain for the first time since 1914, when this noise orchestra was forced to battle it out with sundry variety acts at the London Coliseum, which was then a music hall.) De la Cour’s new Groyne ‘n’ Goosed, inspired by the Garbage Pail Kids, brings together the cream of London’s fractious experimental music scene, including vocalists Lore Lixenberg, Patricia Auchterlonie and Sarah Parkin, composers Neil Luck, Alwynne Pritchard, Matt Rogers, Andy Ingamells, Cameron Dodds and Alan Witts, clarinettist Vicky Wright, pianist Mark Knoop and percussionist Angela Wai Nok Hui. The night starts, however, with a truly forbidden art: Philip Corner’s During This Concert the Hall will be bombed – or blown up (1969). Writer and artist Dean Kissick will present the UK premiere of this Vietnam-era text score, and after each subsequent interval two more: An anti-personnel CBU-Type cluster bomb unit will be thrown into the audience (1969) and one Corner wrote especially for this festival As soon as I finish speaking this hall will be struck by an intercontinental long-range rocket. The guiding spirit of this LCMF – perhaps every LCMF – has been the figure of the trickster. And if there’s something that unites the mythical tricksters – Coyote and Èsù, Hermes and Loki – it is the intrepid interloping instinct. In this vein we will witness noise artist Russell Haswell’s first foray into opera. Emerging from the lineage of the mould-breaking operas of Robert Ashley, the truth is as elusive as ever – an absurdist sci-fi work ‘set in today’s murky future’ – features the experimental choir Musarc and Haswell himself on electronics, and takes on ‘spam, the cost of living crisis and world war three and other current topics’. At the heart of the night Johnny Chang and Catherine Lamb present some newly uncovered fragments from the mysterious composer of the early middle ages, Viola Torros, who specialised in composing and performing on some of the first lute-like instruments: ‘Some were perhaps similar to the rabab, and others similar to the modern day instrument which is, perhaps, her namesake. It is unclear whether she was the initial inventor, or whether she was friendly with a highly developed ... unknown maker(s). Regardless, she certainly is one of the earliest known composers to have written for such modern-like bowed string instruments ... At some point v. Torros seems to have disappeared from the cultural centers she found herself initially drawn to. It is believed she settled further north, most probably into the foothills of what is now considered the Alps. It is here where archeologists have discovered musical, written documents (in a peculiar notation), embedded under layers of stone, which could only be attributed to her.’ As part of our 10th anniversary celebrations, we’re celebrating the London experimental music scene with new work spread out over the four nights by a number of key figures, young and old. Wednesday sees composer Laurie Tompkins team up with saxophonist Sam Andreae on The Feelmouth Greeny, where omnicringe and shitpost modernism meet. ‘Sounds strain under duress,’Tompkins writes of his musical practice, ‘looping their way through scenes of grubby presence, not-quite riff, mouldy echo, and swollen bombast.’ And we end with a trio of artists whose commitment to the bit is unassailable. Derived from the past 70 years of text-score history, A Glimpse of the Art Basel is one of the works that make up Jennifer Walshe’s The Text Score Dataset 1.0 (2021). Here AI – the quintessential trickster tool: a dredge to plunder our collective memory, a vast immaterial net to catch contingency – was used ‘to “breed” new text scores by feeding in pre-existing compositions by artists:’ ‘I don’t view the scores in this booklet as written by me. I view them as products of a community – of a shared avant-garde imaginary in continuous dialogue with itself, which has its roots in John Cage’s classes at the New School for Social Research in the late 1950s and stretches all over the world today. Throughout the project, my role has felt much closer to that of folklore collector than composer.’ We’ll hear the first of four mysterious phone calls that the artist Matt Copson has compiled specially for LCMF, and electronic producer aya – ‘an actual person from off the Pennines’ – who is the 44th aya listed on the online encyclopaedic music listing site Discogs, will play with the music of the 43 ayas that precede her. https://lcmf.co.uk/12-December-Not-sorry Tue, 17 Sep 2024 12:46:11 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/12-December-Not-sorry LCMF 202412 December: Not sorryHackney Church <img width="800" height="825" width_o="800" height_o="825" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6bce54c8af06a5324678f0cc64e63ef587fba2d01b6082adfb5c749ec8540542/image-asset.jpg" data-mid="218190183" border="0" data-scale="66" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/6bce54c8af06a5324678f0cc64e63ef587fba2d01b6082adfb5c749ec8540542/image-asset.jpg" /> Melinda MaxwellLive improvisation on the aulos Jon RafmanCOUNTERFEIT POAST (2023)Charles Ives Take-Off No. 3: Rube Trying to Walk 2 to 3!! (1906)(world premiere) James Clarke 2016-E (2016)(UK premiere) Joanna Ward/Laurie Ward Sissy études: Houdini (2024)(world premiere)(LCMF commission) INTERVAL Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster hypnogirl 24 (2024)(world premiere)(LCMF commission) Steve Beresford / Maggie NicolsLive[Edward George was unwell and had to withdraw] Jon RafmanCOUNTERFEIT POAST (2023) Laila ArafahSibelius Studies 2: [keeping expectations to the absolute minimum so the disappointment will reciprocate] (2024) (world premiere)(LCMF commission) INTERVAL Matt CopsonLET’S CREATE: PART 2 (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF commission) Andrew Hamilton The Heavens (2014) (world premiere)∈Y∋ + C.O.L.O Live(UK debut duo) Performers:Dominique Gonzalez-FoersterTetsuo Yamatsuka (∈Y∋)Yasumichi Miura&nbsp;(C.O.L.O)Explore Ensemble (Arafah, Clarke, Ives) Steve Beresford pianoMaggie Nichols vocalsCafé Rat (Joanna Ward, Laurie Ward)Melinda Maxwell aulos Sarah Park drum Andrew Hamilton piano, vocals ‘When [the trickster] Loki is suppressed the world collapses; when he – and disorder – returns, the world is reborn.’— Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This WorldIt’s hard to overstate how much Plato hated the aulos – and how much he almost certainly would have hated LCMF. For the Greek philosopher, this raucous instrument – a double-reed precursor to the modern oboe – was impure, unreliable, unruly. In the Republic he advised that it should be banned. The aulos has had the last laugh, however. Earlier this year AI deciphered a scroll from Herculaneum that revealed that the aulos was being played to Plato by a Thracian slave-girl on his final evening alive. Had he finally come round to it? Or was he being trolled? Tonight, composer and reeds specialist&nbsp;Melinda Maxwell will recreate these skronky ancient sounds that proved so offensive to Plato’s idea of harmony and order. The disobedience of the aulos is perfectly suited to the spirit of the figure presiding over this year’s festival: the trickster. As is AI. Tonight we present five episodes from COUNTERFEIT POAST (2023), a film by artist Jon Rafman, one of the great manipulators of artificial intelligence. Constructed from a palette of data garbage and Reddit copypasta, and drawing on the Mandela Affect – in which false memories form a mass delusion – the video work is an algorithmic fantasy, ‘a Boschian 21st-century hellscape andd purgatory’, in the words of the artist. AI – and the datasets they rely on – is a form of digital net, a dredge to plunder our collective memory, a vast immaterial lasso to catch contingency. And the net is, according to Lewis Hyde, the trickster’s central invention:‘In Native American creation stories, when Coyote teaches humans how to catch salmon, he makes the first fish weir out of logs and branches. On the Northern Pacific coast, the trickster Raven made the first fishhooks; he taughtt the spider how to make her web and human beings how to make nets… ‘Trick’ is dolos in Homeric Greek, and the oldest known use of the term refers to a quite specific trick: baiting a hook to catch fish.’No sooner had the mythical tricksters invented the net, however, than they were working out a way to unravel it. Trickster is always both a catcher of contingency and a creator of contingency. In this, free improv – of which we welcome two legends tonight: Steve Beresford and Maggie Nicols – is the exemplary trickster artform. Here, accident is always essence. The trickster is a poreseeker. An unraveller. An escape artist. Never happier than tearing holes in the tightly woven fabric off the world. Enter Houdini and Magdeleine G.Theatre maker Laurie Ward and composer Joanna Ward (aka Café Rat) will present Sissy études: Houdini: ‘an aquatic exercise in sisterhood, a passing of the key’. The work ‘spirals from an obsession with Houdini’s extended sonic universe: Kate Bush, keys, water, Eminem, jingle-jangle, Dua Lipa. This obsession led to a strange sonic and symbolic zone in which to question the boundaries of self/other, infancy/adulthood, and intimacy/distance between sisters.’Following the interval, we welcome celebrated artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and the latest iteration of her Apparitions cycle, developed since 2013.‘hypnogirl 24 is the story of an apparition told by anotherapparition.hypnogirl is Madeleine G. (born 1874) is Dominique G-F(born 1965), who never studied dance, dancing in an hypnotic state, experiencing music through movement and emotions.a kind of musical seance disconnected from any rehearsaland acting.– with original music by Julien Perez (Exotourisme)yWhen does a trickster become a troll? Pioneering modernist Charles Ives was without doubt both. To celebrate his 150th anniversary, Explore Ensemble will perform an tiny unplayed sketch, Rube Trying to Walk 2 to 3!! (1906), a transcription of a friend’s drunken stumble home: ‘written as a joke, and sounds like one!’ writes Ives on the score, ‘Watty McCormick only one to see it! And Harry Farrar! At 2.45 A.M.’ Ives’s forays into polytonality, polymetrism, even atonality, at his Yale frat house in the 1890s, demonstrate how crucial barefaced trolling was to the earliestexperiments of modernism.A perverse streak can be found in most modernists. Especially any that have chosen this path in the unforgiving atmosphere of the British state. Tonight – and on Saturday – we champion one of our favourites, the dogged and unsung James Clarke, whose 2016-E, performed by Explore Ensemble, alchemises into sound the stark colour blocks and explosive cracks of the paintings of Clifford Still and Barnett Newman. Alongside the Clarke, Explore Ensemble will premiere a new work from a composer repping Gen Z, Laila Arafah – a true modernist trickster in the making. Like Rafman’s COUNTERFEIT POAST, Sibelius Studies 2: [keeping expectations to the absolute minimum so the disappointment will reciprocate] is a bravura exercise in shitpost modernism and the subcultures of the chronically online: ‘Sibelius Studies 2 is a sequel to the first one, but this time even more disappointing. A delirious smudge of thin gruel, characterised throughout with a haphazard pummeling of sensible musical principles and, quite frankly, the audience, leaving the musicians of Explore Ensemble doodling aimlessly.’ — Laila Arafah Our final trio begins with the second of four mysterious phone calls created specially for LCMF by artist Matt Copson. And before we descend into primeval chaos – the trickster, remember, is the main conduit between the divine, the mortal and the Stygian – we visit The Heavens (2014) courtesy of Andrew Hamilton: ‘a very simple song about heartbreak…’ Closing us out, however, brace yourself for a slice of pure mayhem thanks to a rare visit by two representatives of Japan’s notorious noise scene: ∈Y∋ (Boredoms and Hanatarash) and C.O.L.O (Cosmic Lab). https://lcmf.co.uk/13-December-Actually-sorry Tue, 17 Sep 2024 12:46:11 +0000 LCMF https://lcmf.co.uk/13-December-Actually-sorry LCMF 202413 December: Actually sorryHackney Church <img width="1024" height="1024" width_o="1024" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1084b458c572d0551943b3d6bdb7723d5bd58b78bfb413864afb95e913c35258/stock-photo-photo-realistic-of-an-otter-conducting-an-orchestra-he-s-holding-a-baton-in-his-hand-he-s-wearing-2439999907.jpg" data-mid="219554034" border="0" data-scale="78" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1084b458c572d0551943b3d6bdb7723d5bd58b78bfb413864afb95e913c35258/stock-photo-photo-realistic-of-an-otter-conducting-an-orchestra-he-s-holding-a-baton-in-his-hand-he-s-wearing-2439999907.jpg" /> Excerpts from this concert will be available to listen to on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show until 26 January 2025 Yves KleinMonotone-Silence Symphony (1947/1961) Dengbêj Ali Tekbaş / Murat&nbsp;SavaşLive INTERVAL Maggie Nicols Our Wits About Us&nbsp;(2024)(world premiere)(LCMF Orchestra commission)Lisa StreichKIND (2024)(UK premiere)Laurence Crane Composition for Orchestra no.5 ‘In Hackney’ (2024)(world premiere)(LCMF Orchestra commission)Matt CopsonLET’S CREATE: PART 3 (2024)(world premiere) (LCMF commission) Sofia Jernberg The murals in Quinta del Sordo (2024)(world premiere)(LCMF Orchestra commission) INTERVAL Fox MaxyF1GHTING LOOKS DIFFERENT 2 ME NOW (2022)(London premiere screening) Yoko Ono WALL PIECE FOR ORCHESTRA to Yoko Ono (1962)(UK premiere) Edward HendersonGag (2024)Composed for and with Tara Cunningham, Gwen Reed and Theo Guttenplan(world premiere)(LCMF commission) EVOLLive Performers: EVOL Jack Sheen conductor LCMF Orchestra (Nicols, Crane, Jernberg, Klein, Ono)Dengbêj Ali Tekbaş vocalsMurat Savaş dudukTara Cunningham guitar (Henderson) Gwen Reed bass and voice&nbsp;(Henderson) Theo Guttenplan drums&nbsp;(Henderson) Edward Henderson piano Jacob Kellermann guitar (Streich) ‘Yves [Klein] was trying to nourish us with these ideas [he’d brought from the Lettrists in Paris]. And we began to speak in nonsense syllables on the beach. Arman [Éliane Radigue’s husband] said the idea to make a simple tone was mine, but I’m not so sure. The thing I am sure about is that it was my idea to harmonize the voices – to have everyone in their own register. So, we did the first monotone symphony on the beach, in a certain sense. For me, it was a game – nothing more. But Yves found it very interesting and asked me to write it down for him.’ — interview with Éliane Radigue in Purple Magazine, May 2019 Tonight we hear the fruits of this 1954 seaside visit: Yves Klein’s Monotone-Silence Symphony (1947/1961). The work – 20 minutes of D major, followed by 20 minutes of silence – marks the birth of a new type of music. Radigue described it as an ‘architecture of the air’. One of the special duties of the trickster – who presides over this year’s festival – is to recover and reintroduce what’s been excluded. To ‘enliven the gods that have been deadened by their own purity’ (Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World). Think of the way the Yoruba trickster god Èsù slips into heaven and gets the creator Obatalá drunk. LCMF Orchestra is no different. Out on the razz with the orchestral form this year are the sly experimentalist Laurence Crane, the virtuosic vocalist-composer Sofia Jernberg and improviser extraordinaire Maggie Nicols. The result is three collisions of form and thought and philosophical approach. In Our Wits About Us, by Nicols, we navigate intuition, deep listening, the demands of group self-regulation and autonomy: musicians’ eyes tightly shut, ears alert, mind alive to story. This is orchestral form as water tension – sound, word, constantly on the edge of breaking out, rippling and cannoning. In Crane’s Composition for Orchestra no.5 ‘In Hackney’, meanwhile, a Haydnesque concision of means plays out: a precision-engineered collision of environments, collective action, pure sound, fleeting melody – all in wry Cranian fashion. Both in the Crane and in Jernberg’s The murals in Quinta del Sordo, we get a tripwiring of the canon. In Jernberg we promenade through a modern-day Pictures at an Exhibition, Goya’s Black Paintings as our alarming guide. Here, the trickster thief emerges: the scavenger, the forager, unsettling the claims of truth and property. Look up to catch Yoko Ono’s WALL PIECE FOR ORCHESTRA to Yoko Ono (1962) or you’ll miss it. Ono, Klein and Radigue (a major new commission from whom we will hear on 17 Januart at Wigmore Hall) are the archetypal tricksters, gatekeepers to indelible new realms that you never knew existed. But the pure play that defines what they have to offer can only flourish in the presence of its opposite: seriousness, obstinacy, a commitment to the bit. Another order of obstinacy and seriousness of purpose is behind the survival of the Kurdish art of dengbêj-singing. At several points in the 20th century the Turkish state tried to wipe out this ancient bardic tradition, in which was encoded an entire culture. Modernity and globalisation haven’t been much better for the dengbêjis. But it’s hard to extinguish a form so irrepressible, one that slips so hypnotically between so many modes, hovering between speech and song, in constant timbral tumult, fragile, intensely expressive, a form of folk sprechstimme. The original wily bard was Odysseus – great-grandson of trickster god Hermes. Listen tonight to one of the young dengbêj masters, Ali Tekbaş, who will present two wedding verses, an epic, Cembelî Kurê Mîrê Hekaryan, and a ballad, Dewrêsê Evdî,&nbsp;accompanied by Murat Savaş on duduk. Could this be the sound-world Homer had in mind for his wandering poet? There’s a fragility to the meandering mythical tricksters. Coyote’s impulsiveness drags death into man’s orbit for the first time. Trickster’s world is full of accidents, empty of eternals, anti-idealistic. Between our larger orchestral collisions, we present two cracked fragments: the London premiere of Fox Maxy’s kaleidoscopic collage F1ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now (2022), and the UK premiere of Lisa Streich’s KIND, for the solo guitar of Jacob Kellermann: ‘Instruments come in various sizes and shapes, often reminding me of animals or humans. The guitar is about the size of a small child and lies as if sleeping on the guitarist’s lap. The guitarist’s hands play the notes, the lines, the melodies – possible dreams of the sleeping child – at the child’s head height … I recall Liszt’s Sonetto 104 del Petrarca. In a masterclass, I learned to inwardly sing along with the main motif, ‘Ach Du mein liebes Kind’ (‘Ah, my dear child’). The idea of KIND revolves around this internal singing.’ — Lisa StreichFollowing the third of Matt Copson’s four mysterious phone calls, created specially for LCMF – and Ono’s balcony action – we find ourselves confronted with a band in Edward Henderson’s new Gag: ‘The band are free improvisors or play in rock bands and I’ve composed this piece with them and on them and through them. Gag has three sort-of sections that I have been calling with the band “Radigue”, “Pink Floyd” and “Rameau”. The beginning is my guess at what Éliane Radigue would make if she was writing for an indie band. “Pink Floyd” is pretty self explanatory, this section feels like ecstatic, collapsing prog rock to me. I had a draft of the piece ready to go in September but the feedback I got from a few people was that the end wasn’t “giving” (as the young people say) and I made a new end. This took the form of a kind of pseudo French Baroque unmeasured harpsichord piece like the ones by Rameau and Couperin, using chords I had in my notebook for a song that I never wrote. This is on the piano, while Theo strokes his drumkit which sounds/feels a bit like being in bed with a lover (a relic from the now excised section referred to as “bed”).’ And to end, that familiar LCMF mix of euphoria and cataclysm, as club music’s biggest trolls, rave hooligans EVOL, curse us with a rare UK appearance on Friday 13th.