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Friday 21 June 2024
7pm
Milton Court Concert Hall
Plus-Minus Ensemble
Digital Programmes
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Milton Court
Eating is not permitted in the auditorium. Drinks are allowed inside the auditorium in polycarbonates.
Filming or recording of the performance is not permitted.
Latecomers will be able to enter the auditorium at a suitable break in the performance.
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Founded in 1880 by the City of London Corporation
Chair of the Board of Governors
Emily Benn
Principal
Professor Jonathan Vaughan
Vice-Principal & Director of Music
Armin Zanner
Programme
Greg May Whistle-Stop
Reuben Esterhuizen gestures
Theo Finkel Distant Cousins
Maki Gajic Murata Please don’t let this be goodbye
Darius Paymai quintet
Zhuoer Zhou Mark Knoop becomes a Tree
Anian Wiedner somewhere nowhere
Notes
Greg May Whistle-Stop
This piece is in two halves, both starting with the same percussion gesture. Each half takes the material on different journeys, the first part ending calmly, and the second ending riotously. The title refers to the quicksilver changes between musical ideas throughout — nothing fully settles, or is heard the same way twice.
Reuben Esterhuizen gestures
For this piece, I was interested in presenting a number of similar musical gestures. I decided to use certain algorithms and codes to determine different textural aspects of the successive gestures but found the outcome to be in need of more impulsiveness. The resulting work comprises a mixture of process-based musical progressions and more intuitive interventions, which I hope gives both a sense of something working itself out, and the spontaneous.
Thank you to the Plus-Minus Ensemble.
Theo Finkel Distant Cousins
I found the instrumentation for this piece acutely confounding and equally liberating. My compositional work to a great extent is concerned with instruments as multifaceted things in of themselves — when they are brought together they inevitably suggest various connections and contradictions. This is what lead me through the writing process. It is an enormous privilege to work with Plus-Minus and I am very grateful to them.
Maki Gajic Murata Please don’t let this be goodbye
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
— A. A. Milne
Darius Paymai quintet
The musical materials used in quintet come from several different sources. They are mainly from un-used sketches and drafts of my older pieces, but there are also newly devised materials which sound like something I would have written in the past. I worked by surrounding myself with these scraps and slowly bringing them together as layers which roll over loosely, attaching to and detaching from one another, some solidifying and others fading away.
With many thanks to Mark and Plus-Minus Ensemble.
Zhuoer Zhou Mark Knoop becomes a Tree
Renowned conductor Mark Knoop undergoes a transformation to become a tree against the backdrop of haunting fake Renaissance music. Many thanks to the Plus-Minus Ensemble and Mark Knoop.
Anian Wiedner somewhere nowhere
somewhere nowhere is first and foremost an exploration of sound. Fusing the ensemble sound with subtle electronics, this piece takes a recording that I took one night walking through Green Park tube station as its starting point. The composition delves into themes of presence and absence, encapsulating the dichotomy of feeling both connected and isolated.
Plus-Minus Ensemble
Mira Benjamin violin
Alice Purton cello
Primož Sukič electric guitar
Vicky Wright clarinet, bass clarinet
Joe Richards percussion
Mark Knoop conductor
Plus-Minus Ensemble is a London based ensemble committed to commissioning new work and placing it alongside recent and landmark modern repertoire. Formed in 2003 by Joanna Bailie and Matthew Shlomowitz, Plus-Minus is distinguished by its interest in performative, electroacoustic and conceptual pieces, and experimental open works such as Stockhausen’s 1963 classic, from which the group takes its name. Since 2019, Plus-Minus is directed by Matthew Shlomowitz, Vicky Wright and Mark Knoop.
Plus-Minus has performed in London at Kammer Klang, Cafe Oto, BBC Radio 3 Open Ear, Cut and Splice, City University Concerts, and at Borealis (Bergen), Sampler Sèries (Barcelona), Fundación BBVA Bilbao, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, MaerzMusik (Berlin), Spor Festival (Aarhus), Transit Festival (Leuven), Ultima Festival (Oslo) and Warsaw Autumn.
Plus-Minus has an ongoing relationship with Bath Spa University and the Guildhall School of Music and is Ensemble in Residence at the Reid School of Music (University of Edinburgh). The group has also given workshops and concerts at Stanford University, Durham University, Huddersfield University, University of Southampton and City, University of London.
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