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The Harmonic Canon LP Launch and UK Tour

Fri 26 April 2019

Head of Composition Dominic Murcott takes his award-winning work on tour, culminating in a record launch at the Royal Albert Hall.

The Harmonic Canon is an immersive two-part work by Trinity Laban’s Head of Composition Dominic Murcott that had its world premiere at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2017 and subsequently won the 2018 BASCA British Composer Award for Solo or Duo.

Created in collaboration with American virtuosic percussionists arx duo, the piece is a culmination of four years development and celebrates an array of familiar and unfamiliar sounds such as almglocken (a set of tuned cowbells) and aluphone (tuned aluminium bells) alongside the extraordinary, computer-designed half-ton double bell.

The canon was built specifically by sculptor and musician Marcus Vergette as both an instrument and a piece of public art. The twin bells are tuned a semitone apart to encourage the sonic interference – or “beating” effect – of two pitches close together.

Usually the canon is housed in the courtyard of Trinity Laban’s Faculty of Music at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, but this spring it will be touring around six venues in the UK, starting in Milton Keynes on Saturday 27 April. Dominic’s piece is programmed alongside alumnus Heather Stephenson’s new 21 minute work for hand percussion.

The tour, sponsored by Bell Music, will finish in London with nonclassical’s launch event of The Harmonic Canon on Vinyl on Wednesday 8 May, ahead of the official release on Friday 10 May.

The piece was specifically written for release on LP, with each part lasting 21 minutes, and the recording is part of nonclassical’s new series 21 designed to encourage longer, broader listening.

To find out more about the tour and the LP, visit The Harmonic Canon website.