19-21 June 2023
Douglas Finch, Artistic Director
Howard Felton, Project Manager
Roxanna Albayati, Improvisation Tutor
Mahsa Salali, Curator for What Remains is Voice
Peter Tuite, Festival Co-creator
Douglas Finch, Artistic Director
Howard Felton, Project Manager
Roxanna Albayati, Improvisation Tutor
Mahsa Salali, Curator for What Remains is Voice
Peter Tuite, Festival Co-creator
A rare chance to meet one of the UK’s most renowned directors whose work includes numerous biographical and documentary films about musicians, featuring The Beatles, Cream, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Maria Callas, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Richard Wagner, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Pieces include, No Taking Pictures at the Exhibition! by Jacob Fitzgerald, Clam by Emily Linane, El Medio Borracho by Ashley Solano Hernández and new pieces composed for TL’s John Halford Competition for Piano and Composition.
Trinity Laban students, faculty and alumni will perform, featuring two major piano works: Pritchard’s Raum grieft aus (‘Space is pouring out’) and Montague’s After Ives. Performers include Roxanna Shini Mehrabzadeh, Mikaela Livadiotis, Lewis Kingsley Peart, Billy Ebanks, Amit Grewal, and Aleksander Szram.
The Cosmicomic Suite is a new work for piano, electronics, voice and lights for solo performer, made of six movements, each one composed by a different emerging artist. The suite is based on Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, a collection of stories that make up a speculative history of the Universe, narrated through the voice of the polymorphous being QwfwQ. Pieces by Giovanni Dinello, Jan Stevuliak, Carolina Cury, Nina Baietta, Milda Vitartaite and Konstantinos Damianakis.
Piano pieces performed by Mikhail Shilyaev, Ronojit Bhuyan and Pietro Iacopini, including Timur Ismagilov Solitude, Dmitry Shostakovich Aphorisms, Deirdre Gribbin Unseen, Giacinto Scelsi Four illustrations on the metamorphosis of Vishnu and the premiere of Mikhail Shilyaev’s Prophet als Vogel.
Curated by pianist and multimedia artist Mahsa Salali and featuring graduate researcher and cellist Roxanna Albayati, MMus pianist Roxanna Shini Mehrabzadeh, musicians and dancers from Trinity Laban and distinguished guest Iranian artists.
Traditional Persian Music
Talk by Soosan Lolavar “Introduction on Dastgāh Music.” Followed by improvisation by Iranian artists on traditional Persian instruments. Including renowned Persian duo Malahat (voice) and Faraz (Kamancheh)
Contemporary Iranian Composers
Works by distinguished Iranian composers Soosan Lolavar, Atefeh Einali, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Amir Konjani. The evening includes the premiere of Amir Konjani’s Trumpet Concertante no. 2 with alum trumpeter Adam Hebditch and a new adaptation of Soosan Lolavar’s piece Inventory on My Life for piano and dance.
Experimental Live Music
ZANĀN is an experimental music and performance art collective, focusing on the sense of belonging and expression of artistic identity among diaspora cultures. ZANĀN زنان is Farsi for women/feminine. In this evening they perform their new work صداها (Voices); choreographed and directed by Mahsa Salali, co-curated by Roxanna Albayati. Including guest Iranian visual artist Tasalla Tabasom who will be painting live for this performance.
Multi-talented composer and musicologist Allan Moore has produced a veritable explosion of over 100 piano and chamber works since a visionary re-awakening in October 2019. Filled with humour, surprise and multi-stylistic references, all of his pieces on this programme are receiving their premieres. The programme will end with Allan’s startling take on Beethoven’s famous Für Elise entitled This Way Fury Lies (but mama, that’s where the fun is).
Performed by Isaac Tobenna Onyirioha and Lucas Saraiva Cunha. Includes selections from Kats-Chernin Book of Rags and Bolcom’s The Garden of Eden.
These explorative musical performances will flow from audience input, poetry, clowning, dancing and audiovisuals. Featuring Trinity Laban students, faculty, alumni and guests.