r a d u   m a l f a t t i

j ü r g   f r e y

a n g h a r a d   d a v i e s

d o m i n i c   l a s h

s a r a h   h u g h e s

k o s t i s   k i l y m i s

cathnor recordings and another timbre presenttwo improvised duos and two composed sextets

the event curator would like to thank the saru unit at brookesuniversity for the supply of some equipment and rehearsal space

thanks also to simon, kostis, radu, jürg, angharad, dom, sarah, stephen, dan, patrick and julie without whom this event could not happen

radu malfatti trombone

jürg frey clarinet

angharad davies violin

dominic lash double bass

sarah hughes zither

kostis kilymis electronics

angharad davies, dominic lash improvisation

sarah hughes, kostis kilymis improvisation

jürg frey composition time, intent, memory*

radu malfatti composition darenootodesuka

* composed specifically for this concert

A common criticism of music not dissimilar to that which will be performed tonight is that it can offer an ascetic, dry perspective that then only attracts the kind of listener willing to sit in near silence, undertaking some kind of hushed vigil in the presence of music that perhaps suggests that it requires more attention than any other. To-night’s concert mixes improvisation and modern composition that is written and in part performed by two of the key figures from the  much  discussed Wandelweiser  Composers  Collective;  Radu Malfatti and Jürg Frey. When it first became clear that these two esteemed gentlemen would be able to play at this concert, and I set about putting together a bill of performances sympathetic to their approach, a friend whose opinion I respect a great deal warned me away  from making  the  schedule  of  events  too ‘reverential’. They suggested that an entire evening of near silent composition in the presence of Malfatti and Frey may just be too much, verging on a gathering almost religious in its outlook. When it became clear that as a matter of convenience it was likely that the concert would be held  in a currently active church the references became uncom-fortably recurrent for this confirmed atheist and I set about defin-ing for my own benefit some thoughts on why I enjoy this music.

All but one of the musicians performing this evening are perhaps best known as improvisers, musicians that create music in the mo-ment with little or no advance idea of the shape the music will take. All of them however have also performed composed music of one form or another written by members of the Wandelweiser collec-tive. They are not in the minority here, as it would possibly be fair to say that a considerable proportion of the musicians  found to be performing the music of the collective are also active improvisers. For me, the reasons for this are clear. The music of the Wandel-weiser collective has many similarities with improvisation, and with more  recent,  texturally  focussed  improvisation  in  particular. The compositions of Malfatti and Frey, alongside those of their associ-ates Antoine Beuger, Michael Pisaro, Manfred Werder and others almost always allow a degree of interpretation to be made by the musicians  as  the  score  is  realised  as  a  performance. The degree to which the musicians play a part in shaping how the music may sound differs tremendously from composer to composer, score to score.  A Manfred Werder text score containing just a few words is open to just about any interpretation, while a work like Time, In-tent, Memory, written by Jürg Frey for tonight’s concert prescribes certain elements of the music closely while others are left open to 

the musicians. One common element that can be found across all of the Wandelweiser collective’s work that is also present in improvi-sation  is  that while a general area and atmosphere of  the music may be predetermined there is always a potential for significant dif-ferences between different realisations of the same work. This area of investigation, positively welcomed and explored by the compos-ers follows in a long tradition most often associated with the work of the American composer John Cage and the Fluxus group, both of  whom  also  attract  the  interest  of  improvising  musicians. The degree of exploration that this fertile atmosphere of collaboration presents  in  a concert  setting  then offers  the  listener more  than mere recital of written music. Despite the freedoms offered through these compositions, the contrast between the composed and im-provised  elements  of  this  evening’s  concert  will  remain  marked. If  the  improvising musicians enjoy  the occasional part-constraint of  a  composer’s  instructions  to  place  them  into  particular  envi-ronments it is likely that the freely improvised performances this evening will reflect a subconscious urge to break free of these. The inclusion of improvised performances woven between the compo-sitions is a deliberate strategy to vary the evening and reinforce the attention to detail required to play the composed works by con-trasting them with the uncertainty and freedom of improvisation.

The Wandelweiser  collective  then  allow  musicians  more  scope than  traditionally prescriptive composers  to shape and  form the music. Often, but not always, the music is also very quiet and set at a  slow pace.  It can be  these elements  that  seem to draw the criticism of  some,  the  accusation  being  that  the music  becomes too  precious,  each  rare  sound  dropped  into  white  space  idol-ised  by  those  sat  silently  waiting  for  them.  If  somebody’s  taste is  for  busily  active  music  then  this  may  be  a  valid  criticism,  but an  analogy  with  the  visual  arts  seems  applicable  here. As Agnes Martin’s minimal paintings won’t appeal to all but will garner the great respect of many,  so  there  is room  in modern composition for  the  parallel  reductionism  of  the Wandelweiser  composers.

It also remains a much dismissed cliché that the music of the Wan-delweiser sits in contrast to the noise and activity of the modern world around it, but it remains a fact that time spent in a concert space listening to this music can place the listener into an environ-ment they are unlikely to easily find elsewhere. That environment is not necessarily a calm or relaxing one however. If the suggestions of acolytes sat quietly in hushed reverence seem accurate on the surface they miss the way that this music involves the audience in a manner untypical of most music. Placed  in  a near  silent  room, suddenly conscious of every sound and movement, an audience is instantly pulled closer to the music than if they were present at a noisy event. The initial response may be one of fear of making an unintended contribution to the concert, a “no  farting  in church”  analogy seemingly relevant, but get past these initial concerns and the way this music includes its audience and their surroundings of-fers a connection to the musicians that follows on from how the composer  includes  the musicians  in  the  realisation of  the work. These inclusive qualities of the music and the environment that it creates can be tense and the need to remain focussed and attentive places demands upon the listener, but ultimately the experience is, for me at least, a thoroughly rewarding and uplifting one. If a church then consists of a place to which the herds flock to sit and listen to the unquestionable utterances of a figurehead, so the music of Wandelweiser is a far more communal affair, a shared experience involving  all  that  are  willing  to  consider  themselves  a  part  of  it.

Richard Pinnell

the dangers of reverence

wandelweiser and improvisation

1943 born in Innsbruckgot bored after 2 ½ years of studying architecture and left1965-70 looked for the Academy of Music in Grazstudied piano, composition and  trombone with eje thelinlived in amsterdam, london, zürich, florenz, amsterdam, berlin, cologne and viennaspoke with sonny rollins1980 began composing againdrank coffee with luigi nono1985 formed own orchestra- ohrkistelikes to play chess with siegfried fussyperformed with everyone from derek bailey to keith rowe to various takus1995 joined wandelweiser composers collectivemade a lot of recordsread a lot, forgot everything

radu malfatti trombone

Jürg Frey was born in 1953 in Aarau. Following his musical education, which finished with the examen de virtuosité in the class of Thomas Friedli at the Con-cervatoire de Musique de Genève, he turned to a career  as a clarinetist, but his activities as composer soon came to the foreground.He developed his own language as a composer and  sound artist with the crea-tion of wide, quiet sound spaces.  His work is marked by an elementary non-ex-travagence of sound, a sensibilty for the qualities of the material, and precision of compositional approach.His music and recordings are published by Edition Wandelweiser.Jürg  Frey  is  a member of  the Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble which  has              presented concerts for more than 15 years in Europe, North America and Japan.Frey lives with his family in Aarau (Switzerland), teaches clarinet, and organises the concert series  moments musicaux aarau as a forum for contemporary music. 

jürg frey clarinet

Angharad  Davies  is  a  violinist  based  in  London.  She  is  an  active  performer  in contemporary, improvisation and experimental music both as a soloist and within ensembles. Since making London her base in 2002 she has developed a specific approach to the violin, extending the sound possibilities of the instrument by at-taching and applying objects to the strings or by sounding unexpected parts of the instrument’s body. She is dedicated to exploring and expanding sound production on the violin.

angharad davies violinw

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While reading English at St John’s College, Oxford, Dominic Lash met and performed with Pat Thomas, which set him on the path of being an improvising musician. In the decade since he has become very active in the fields of impro-vised and experimental music, performing with musicians such as Tony Conrad, 

Rhodri Davies, Joe Morris, Evan Parker, and Michael Pisaro.A member of a great many semi-regular groups, prominent among which are a 

trio with John Butcher and John Russell; duos with Patrick Farmer and David Stent; the Convergence Quartet; Alex Ward’s Predicate, and various collabora-

tions with the Swiss duo Diatribes. In 2010 he founded the Set Ensemble, an experimental music group with a particular focus on the work of the

Wandelweiser group. For nearly ten years he was an active member of  Oxford Improvisers, an organisation he helped to establish. 

Recordings of his work are available on many labels.

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w.dom

iniclash.co.uk

dominic lash double bass

Kostis Kilymis is an artist focusing on audio feedback systems and representa-tion. His practice touches upon music, installation work and video – developed 

using a mixture of electronic and acoustic approaches.In performance, he has collaborated with various musicians such as Lucio 

Capece, Nikos Veliotis, Leif Elggren, Patrick Farmer and Sarah Hughes and has performed works by John Cage, and Michael Pisaro.

In his spare time, he runs the Organized Music from Thessaloniki music label.

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Sarah Hughes is an artist and musician currently based in Oxford.  She plays zither and piano in improvising groups and as a founding member of the Set 

Ensemble, a group of musicians dedicated to the performance of contemporary composition.  She performs with long-term collaborators Patrick Farmer, Daniel 

Jones and Stephen Cornford and has also performed with musicians such as Antoine Berger, Seijiro Murayama, Dominic Lash and Kostis Kilymis. 

She has performed  throughout the UK and Europe, and has participated in various international festivals such asBlurred Edges in Hamburg and i and e in 

Dublin. She is the co-founder of Compost and Height, curating various projects,editing the Wolf Notes publication and providing a platform for improvised 

music and composition.

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w.sarahhughesportfolio.blogspot.com

sarah hughes zither

kostis kilymis electronics

music we’d like to hearthree concerts on three wednesdays curated by three composers

markus trunk

I4th july 2012

piano duet relay

tim parkinson

II11th july 2012

edges ensemble

john lely

III18th july 2012

hanne darboven

church of st anne & st agnes gresham street london ec2v 7bx

for full details of composers, musicians and compositionsvisit www.musicwedliketohear.com

b-boim records

“do i cease to exist inbetween waves of sound?”

www.radumalfatti.eu/b-boim_records

organized music from thessalonikinew releases available now

pascal battus & alfredo costa monteiromuura

ferran fages

http://thesorg.noise-below.org

compostandheight.com

Another TimbreNew Releases June 2012

at51

Outwash

Angharad DaviesTisha MukarjiDimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga

at52

Kolk

Christoph SchillerBirgit Ulher

at53r

Unbalanced In(Unbalanced out)

Barry ChabalaBonnie JonesLouisa MartinTisha MukarjiToshimaru NakamuraGabriel Paiuk

at54r

three bodies (moving)

Catherine Lamb

at55

Chantier 1

Pascal BattusBertrand GauguetEric La Casa

www.anothertimbre.com

cathnor recordingsavailable now

marc baronJean-luc guionnet, claire bergerault

FORTHCOMINGSTEPHEN CORNFORD, SAMUEL RODGERS

PATRICK FARMER, DOMINIC LASHRADU MALFATTI

WWW.CATHNOR.COM

TheSonic Art

Research Unit

www.cathnor.comwww.anothertimbre.com