Friday 12 December 2003
Doors open 7pm for Food, Wine and general relaxation
Programme
9.30 Writing through John Cage, a text re-enactment by Paul Newland
10.00 One8, John Cage, 1991, a solo for cello performed by Audrey Riley, 43’33”
“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
John Cage
One8 is a score with fifty-three separate time brackets, allowing periods of long, random silence and the opportunity to improvise within set parameters. All time brackets overlap, so the composition may be performed like a sound continuum. Durations, dynamics and bow positions are left to the performer.
Renowned for her interpretations of the composer John Cage (1912 -1992), cellist Audrey Riley has maintained a professional career in both contemporary and popular music for seventeen years. Since 1989 she has been the cellist in Icebreaker, a contemporary music ensemble which specialises in the music of Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. In 1993 Audrey commissioned and began to play the first English five string electric cello. The first person to play this customised instrument in contemporary music, she has used it to perform live with Icebreaker and Cathal Coughlan’s Grand Necropolitan Quartet. During 1999 she toured with the Siobhan Davies Dance Company and in 2001/02 with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performing in Paris, Berlin, Reykjavik and at The Barbican, London. In 2002 she embarked on her own project A Change Of Light, a collaboration between musicians, composers and a visual artist, to present music for cello in an expanded recital. She has recently arranged, directed and played string arrangements on the albums A Rush Of Blood To The Head by Coldplay, Comfort In Sound by Feeder and Statues by Moloko.
Paul Newland is a contemporary composer, musician and member of the music collective [rout]. In 1997 Beaconsfield curated visual artists to collaborate with [rout] in Classic. This inaugural concert contextualised new site-specific works by [rout] founders Sam Hayden, Paul Newland and Paul Whitty with rarely performed works by Stockhausen, Cage, Cardew, Andriessen and Giovanni Gabrieli.
Tickets £8, £4 (concessions)
Price includes £1 Society membership*
*Society is a membership club that offers its members regular access to good films, good music, good wine, good food, good discussion and good company.