Listen & Talk
Listen & Talk is a rare platform for people to meet up and talk about music they've been listening to. Listen & Talk events are not talks or academic seminars, but more like a book group in which you’re equally able to contribute whether you’re expert in a subject or completely new to it, as long as you’ve listened to the music in advance.
We'll point you towards recordings to listen to ahead of each event. The events themselves are small, informal gatherings where you’ll meet up with other people who’ve been listening to the same music to discuss it over a glass of wine. Each time the subject will be chosen by a different guest speaker, who will introduce the music and then ask for the thoughts and perspectives of everyone in the room. We’ll be looking at some fascinating and non-mainstream music, but the aim is always to talk about it in ways that let anyone get involved.
It’s a great way to try new things and talk about music, whether you already love the subject in question, really don’t get it or have no idea what to expect. Come along and give it a try!
Next Event:
Tuesday 25 October, 6.30pm – 8.30pm
The Pixies and the Voice
Guest speaker: Jennifer Walshe
This Listen & Talk event will focus on the Pixies and innovative 20th-century vocal techniques. Composer and vocalist Jennifer Walshe writes:
I love the Pixies for many reasons. I grew up with their music, went to their gigs as a teenager in Dublin. It wasn't until years later that I realised I learned a lot as a vocalist listening to Black Francis's vocal twists and turns, how he manipulated register, tone, the grain of the voice in each song.
Although we'll be focusing on the Pixies, we'll also be broadening out the discussion to talk about vocal experimentation in modern composition, improvisation and other musical worlds. If you would like to suggest something to listen to, you're invited to add it to our collaborative Spotify playlist.
Book your place in advance via Ticketweb.
Advance listening:
Listen to the 5 Pixies tracks Tame, Broken Face, Gigantic, Where is My Mind? and Caribou. You can listen to them for free via our Listen & Talk: Pixies Spotify playlist (you'll need to have the free Spotify software installed). And if you would like to suggest more things to listen to that would add to this discussion, you can simply add them to this collaborative playlist.
Past events:
Wednesday 12 October, 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Marc Sabat, Chiyoko Szlavnics and the 'Plainsound' composers
Guest speaker: James Weeks
Advance listening (the following are all freely available to listen to / view online):
- Marc Sabat's String Quartet no.2 (Cucumber Variation) - listen online / download PDF score
- Chiyoko Slavnics' Gradients of Detail - listen to an extract online
- Also take a look at an example of Marc Sabat's "just intonation" notation in the piece Hairy Hippy Happy - download PDF score
'Plainsound' is a group identity chosen by a circle of composers
currently working on both sides of the Atlantic (particularly Berlin
and the US) whose music takes off from an interest in tuning,
temperament, 'Just Intonation' and the acoustical phenomena associated
with them. Many of the composers studied or worked with the late James
Tenney, whose music is also featured in Plainsound. This listening and
discussion event will focus on two of the Plainsound composers, Chiyoko
Slavnics and Marc Sabat.
The Rambler on Chiyoko Slavnics:
'What
I loved about Szlavnics’ music was this: that although she was writing
in this intensely abstract way, she hadn’t gone completely white and
sans-serif about it. These were extremely expressive pieces, each had
its distinctive flavour and dramatic shape.'
Thursday 9 June 2011, 6.30pm – 8.00pm
Giacinto Scelsi's String Quartet No.2
Guest speaker: Christopher Fox
Advance listening:
- Scelsi's String Quartet No.2 is available to listen to free of charge on the Spotify programme. Spotify is a free download from www.spotify.com.
- Alternatively you can download the four mp3 tracks from Amazon for £3.16, or purchase the full CD album of the Quartet alongside other works by Scelsi.
Giacinto Scelsi (1905-88) was a remarkable composer (though he disliked this term) and poet. An outsider to the new music world, he considered himself a medium or vessel who transcendentally received musical messages while meditating and improvising at the piano or on the guitar and percussion instruments. Because of his outsider status and eccentricity, he was mostly ignored until just before he died, since when he has inspired awed reception from people ranging from new music aficionados to fans of hardcore noise. The Wire’s Andy Hamilton wrote about his music: “This imposingly static music has an elemental power, an organic resonance, like something hewn from nature.”
Thursday 12 May 2011, 6.30pm – 8.00pm
Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel
Guest speaker: Howard Skempton
Advance listening (please book your place and then listen to Rothko Chapel in advance of the discussion):
- Rothko Chapel is available to listen to free of charge on the Spotify programme. Spotify is a free download from www.spotify.com.
- Alternatively you can download the mp3 tracks of Rothko Chapel for £3.95, or purchase the full CD album for £15.54, from Amazon.
“Morton Feldman […] turned out to be one of the major composers of the twentieth century, a sovereign artist who opened up vast, quiet, agonizingly beautiful worlds of sound. […] For a time, it appeared that Feldman would be remembered as one of several experimental composers who were gathered around John Cage. In the past two decades, however, his reputation has steadily ascended. The music has found an audience not only among new-music connoisseurs but also among adventurous fans of rock and pop, who are quick to respond to its unearthly power. In a 1982 lecture that is reprinted in Morton Feldman Says, the composer asks, ‘Do we have anything in music for example that really wipes everything out? That just cleans everything away?’ If we didn’t before, we do now.”
From Alex Ross’s essay, “American Sublime” in The New Yorker, 19 June 2006
Morton Feldman wrote Rothko Chapel for soprano, alto, mixed choir and instruments for the meditation room of the Menil Foundation's non-denominational Rothko Chapel in Houston/Texas in 1971. The room contains 14 large paintings by the American artist Mark Rothko in red, black and purple tones, which vary according to the light and create an atmosphere of contemplation and tranquillity. Feldman wrote about the piece: “To a large degree, my choice of instruments (in terms of forces used, balance and timbre) was affected by the space of the chapel as well as the paintings. I wanted the music … to permeate the whole octagonal-shaped room and not be heard from a certain distance".
Howard Skempton, who will introduce and host the session, is a composer and accordionist who, with Cornelius Cardew and Michael Parsons, founded the legendary experimental performing ensemble The Scratch Orchestra in 1968. A friend and inspiration, Feldman has been one of the key influences in Skempton’s life. Skempton has composed hundreds of small-scale miniature pieces, often for solo piano or accordion, which he calls the “central nervous system” of his work, while the piece which has achieved greatest popular success is the monumental work for orchestra, Lento.
