Musarc

Christmas Concert 2015

Saturday 19 December 2015, 7pm
St George’s Bloomsbury
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Musarc is returning to one of London’s greatest acoustic spaces with a new programme featuring recent work, interventions and performances by Neil Luck, Claudia Molitor and Uriel Urlow; traditional and modern choral repertoire by Benjamin Britten, Howard Skempton, Olivier Messiaen and John Tavener; an audio screening of Pavel Büchler’s 12-inch record LIVE; and a live performance of Steve Reich’s Piano Phase on Nintendo Game Boys.

Food by Helly's Kitchen.

Programme

Musarc invited Neil Luck, Claudia Molitor and Uriel Urlow to make an intervention, or bring a contribution to the evening that continues the choir’s work concerned with the social nature of music, and the ‘musical’ deeds of creative acts in other disciplines such as drawing, performance, or installation art. To find out more, read Joseph Kohlmaier’s short summary of Musarc’s work for the Cass Session 2014–15.

Benjamin Britten
Rejoice in the lamb (1943)
Hymn to the virgin (1930–34)

Pavel Büchler, LIVE (1999) [audio screening]
LIVE features the audiences from various live performances before and after each track played by a live band, from 351 albums in the collection of Pavel Büchler recorded between 1957 and 1998. The 12-inch record was launched by the artist in an installation at the Alte Grammophon-Fabrik, Hannover in October 1999, the factory where the first gramophone record was made.

Neil Luck, Bloody Sirens (2015)
On 3 October 2015 Musarc recorded four pieces written for the choir by Neil Luck between 2010 and 2015 live at Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp. Bloody Sirens, the last in the series written for the Antwerp performance, casts each individual singer in the choir as a soloist. The recordings will be released on a 12-inch album with avant-garde music label Entr’acte in spring.

Steve Reich, Piano Phase (1967), Pselodux version
Alex de Little and Joseph Kohlmaier will perform a version of Steve Reich’s Piano Phase live on Nintendo Game Boys, using a sequencer patch developed for the games console by Australian electronic musician Pselodux.

Howard Skempton, The flight of song (1996)
The flight of song was commissioned for, and first performed during a COMA Summer School in 1996 and sets to music the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The score includes an opening section with a graphic score by Trevor Skempton, which embellishes Longfellow's poems with words by Blake, Browning, Coleridge, Milton, Shelley, Shakespeare and others.

John Tavener
The lamb (1976)

Joseph Kohlmaier, Tier Metapher (2015)
A new work for percussion and voices.

Kenneth Leighton, Lully, lulla, though little tiny child (1956)
Victoria, O magnum mysterium (1572)
Olivier Messiaen, ‘Les anges’, from: La nativité du Seigneur (1935)

Carols

Event info

Conductor
Cathy Heller Jones

Creative concept
Joseph Kohlmaier

Stage direction
Melanie Pappenheim

Phillip Bell
Vocal coach

Organ
Peter Twitchin

Venue

Christmas Concert 2015
Saturday 19 December 2015, 7pm
£10  £15     Book Tickets

St George’s Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury Way
London WC1A 2SA

Map

Visitor and booking info

Due to limited seating and high demand, we can accept pre-booked tickets only. There are no tickets available at the door.

Bar and Buffet

Doors will open to the public at 6.45pm. We will serve mulled cider, beer and soft drinks at the bar outside, under the portico, and in a room at the back of the venue. Food will be available from Helly's Kitchen from 6.45–7.30pm, and during the 20 minute interval. The bar and buffet will remain open after the concert. The concert will end at 9.30pm approx. Doors will close at 10.30pm.

Video credits

The four random video collages on the homepage and in this page were created by Joseph Kohlmaier on the occasion of this concert. They show: Yvonne Rainer's Hand-movie (1966) seen in Egon Brunswick's Perception and the Representative Design of Psychological Experiments (1954); Trisha Brown in Mangolte’s Watermotor (1978) seen through the interior of Wohnung Böhm, Erst Plischke (1930); Starlings (anonymous video) + Installation view of Shahryar Nashat's Factor Green / Travertine Bench with Accompanist (2011) in: Kunstforum International 210 (Sep. 2011), p.144; Ada’s eyes + pp.72–73 of J.B. Sidgwick's Astronomy for Night Watchers, (1942)

Artists

Christmas Concert 2015

Saturday 19 December 2015, 7pm
St George’s Bloomsbury

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