in alphabetical order :

ENRICO BERTELLI - Corporel (Globokar)

THEO BURT - Colour Projections

BRIONY CLARKE - Swim

MELANIE CLARKE and ANGIE ATMADJAJA - Line

MORAG GALLOWAY- Excercise in Futility

ALEX HARKER - The Kinetics of Resonance

EMILY KALIES - noitcelfeRReflection + Untitled: Nativity of the Minster + STEAM

JUDITH RING - Mouthpiece

RADEK RUDNICKI - Ink Dye

GARRETT SHOLDICE - Trio #2 + Soundscape in Movement

CINDY TONG - Ghost Unseen

TIM WRIGHT - Eight Switches

top

Enrico Bertelli:

Deeply interested in Contemporary Music, with a special emphasis on the Percussion music repertory. A rich background mixes the theoretical preparation achieved through university, with the instrumental skills gained through intense studies at the Conservatoire and at the various master classes.

Since moving to the UK, worked closely with composers, investigating the possibilities of percussion instruments and trying to push the conventional boundaries as in the UUCMS project for percussion and live electronics.

Firmly convinced of the importance of an informed performance, constantly approaches every piece both as a performer and as a musicologist. This duality helps achieve a better understanding of the music and enables communicating with the audience with sounds and words.

The current PhD in Contemporary Performance - Percussion at York University, follows an MA in Performance Studies at Cardiff University (Distinction), BA in TARS - Tecniche Artistiche e dello Spettacolo at Ca'Foscari University - Venice and Diploma in Strumenti a Percussione at the Conservatorio di Verona both with top marks.

Globokar - Corporel

Vinko Globokar was born in France of Yugoslovian parents and currently lives in Paris.

Corporel means 'of the body' and was written in 1985. This piece is shocking on a fundamental level, because the body of the human performer is so often a nonentity component of classical music. When you go to an orchestra concert, for instance, you expect a cerebral or emotional or certainly a nonphysical experience. The bodies of the players themselves are disguised and neutralized by the very fact that they are in uniform. Everything is done in a way to neutralize the visual and theatrical components of the experience. You often feel invited to listen with your eyes closed. Corporel reverses that by insisting on the body and the idea that we ourselves make sounds and are by nature musical creatures.

The physical part of the piece is really tied to the emotional and musical part. You are not only invited to look, you must look. When I practiced, I experimented like I would on a drum, slapping myself in different ways to get the right sound. The instrument--me, in this case--carries with it an unprecedented complexity. As complex as a cymbal is acoustically, the human body is infinitely more complex. And when you consider the emotional ramifications of playing a piece without instruments and you yourself being the instrument, there's a very complex interaction that is not easy to quantify. I am both calculating the stroke and receiving it. It doesn't hurt especially, although, when I stop to think about it, it should, because I'm sometimes striking myself pretty hard.

People tend to think of percussion as a collection of exotic or junk or found instruments because we're so influenced by world music and by the Partch tradition. In my view, the definitive quality of percussion is the way in which the human body is used as an instrument or as an instigator of instrumental sounds. Corporel is the purist percussion piece I know because it is just the body."

top

Theo Burt:

Theo Burt is a UK-based sound and video artist

Colour Projections is a computer-based audio and video work creating precise relationships between sound and geometry. Through a progression of a geometric systems, rules are established and shapes are created, intersected, combined and destroyed. Each resulting shape is both drawn and sonified - a shape's outline is directly transformed to an audio waveform.

Although the systems use only fixed, stateless geometric operations, through certain coincidences there is a tendency to attribute identity to individual shapes and perceive a level of causality within the systems. We are reminded that these perceptions are illusive when the geometric behaviour diverges from our expectations, causing shifts in plurality and ambiguities of identity.

top

Briony Clarke:

Briony Clarke spent two years in the Catskill mountains New York devising and coordinating activity programs in a respite for adults with learning & physical difficulties. She then went on to complete a BA in interior architecture – Spatial design,  then a postgraduate diploma in fine art at Byam Shaw (central St Martins). Currently she is pursuing a MA in communication Art and design at the Royal College of Art in London.

Her work consists of four characters, The Coward, The Comedian, The Gardener and The Mother being the four prominent characters. They are all elements of herself. These characters allowed her to stream the floods of concerns or thoughts from meanderings into more definitive passages.

Each character has a physical archive of projects/conversations/operations which she calls the diaries . Often her work becomes a sequence of text combined with a space, or text combined with an image often simply text to that extent she personally views it as a form of hieroglyphics or perhaps even a meta language (a language used to talk about another language).  It’s an attempt to engage with ideas from philosophy & linguistics while co-opting them into a looser more innate or speculative framework.

Thus not all the projects exist in a solid form of physicality in fact most of them don’t; they remain in the diaries.

www.brionyclarke.co.uk

top

Melanie Clarke:

Title: Line

Choreography: Melanie Clarke

Composer: Angie Atmadjaja

Dancers: Joana Simas, Melanie Clarke

Melanie Clarke has been creating professional work since 1999.  She has produced eight works for her company ‘blue white’ as well as works for other companies.   Melanie Clarke trained at Laban and became a member of the Laban faculty.  She works as a dancer, Labanotator, contemporary technique teacher as well as a choreographer.

Melanie performs in her own work but has also danced with Ben Ash and Rachel Lopez de la Nieta in their Place Prize work “in this world” (2006); Tanzcompagnie Giessen, Germany (2006, 2007, 2008), Poznan Contact Improvisation Laboratory, Poland (2005); The Siobhan Davies Dance Company “Bank 2001” in which Bank, originally created in 1997, was revived and toured to London venues

Collaboration plays an important element of Melanie’s work. She always aims for her works to be supported by original sound and lighting scores created through various collaborative processes.  She has collaborated with sound artists such as Angie Atmadjaja, Reynaldo Young and Ronen Kozokaro. Melanie has also collaborated with the scenographer – Gregor Knüppel and lighting designer Fay Patterson.

Line:

Line is a journey through concentric circles of time until you enter the centre of time and stop.  Two dancers are seen in simultaneous virtual close up video projection and live presence as their pace slows and their heart beats quicken.  Get caught up in the relativity of time as movement equals speed in this mesmerising live event.

Melanie Clarke works from the conceptual basis of the infinite possibilities of the human body in motion and the nuances of meaning that come from highly visible physical intention.  Each choreographed work is an in-depth exploration in which the intense specificity of movement provides a particular resonance and gives an individual identity.  The works have both an emotional or psychological resonance and a refined formalism and are performed with an intensity of presence that is highly absorbing.  It is always elegant and finely tuned but also highly physical and virtuosic.  It is the combination of this visceral physicality and the structured formalism that makes her work unique.

web:

http://melanieclarke.moonfruit.com

http://www.angieatmadjaja.com

top

Morag Galloway:

Morag Galloway is a composer studying for her PhD in composition at the University of York. She is studying with Roger Marsh and her focus is music theatre – creating crossover work which will also be available as stand-alone films. Morag runs the annual contemporary music night Ad Hoc, and is a member of the soprano quartet Tongue Stuff. For further information please contact Morag: morag@moraggalloway.com

Exercise in Futility.
For two performers and soundtrack

This piece was inspired by the teachings of Roberto Assagioli, especially his work on will power. The constant repetitive stepping is an exercise used to strengthen the will and it is placed between music and movement based sections which highlight the repetitive nature of our daily lives.

Whilst the piece presents a deterioration throughout the period of a day there is hope through the stylisation of the daily actions – as they become more abstract they become more fluid and dance like, and we are reminded that there is beauty everywhere, even in the mundane and the routine.

My PhD is based on pieces of contemporary music theatre that challenge the distinction between music and theatre. I will also be submitting films of the pieces - a document of the live theatrical performance and a new, reworked stand-alone film of the piece.
Sensorium is supporting me as it is enabling another performance of 'Exercise in Futility' and this will be filmed for my PhD portfolio. Another performance of the piece in a contrasting setting and programme to the premiere will further add to the understanding of the piece in preparation for the final film; it will also help to inform my future compositional choices.

top

Alex Harker:

Alex Harker (b. 1983) composes electroacoustic, instrumental and interactive music. His most recent work focuses on strategies for bringing together these sometimes disparate fields to create an engaging and coherent whole.

He first studied composition formally with Gwyn Pritchard in Bristol and has since had numerous composition teacher, including Vic Hoyland, Jonty Harrison, Eric Oña, David Berezan and Scott Wilson. In October 2006 he moved to York to start his PhD study with Ambrose Field and Roger Marsh. His PhD is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. 

His works have been performed and workshopped in the UK, France and Switzerland by the Worldscape Laptop Orchestra, Darragh Morgan, Elastic Axis, BEAST, the University of Birmingham New Music Ensemble and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Upcoming performances include a new work for the clarinet player Jonathan Sage.

He is also active as a performer of contemporary music in the roles of conductor and laptop performer.

www.myspace.com/alexanderjharker

The Kinetics of Resonance
Solo Drum Kit

c.13-16 minutes (variable)

In The Kinetics of Resonance two kinds of thinking about music coexist. The first is concerned with patterns, order and rhythm, the second with timbre, gesture and a freer sense of time (clock-time rather than bars and beats).  Over the course of the piece different takes on how these two ways of thinking might be combined another are explored, sometimes linearly and sometimes in simultaneous combination.

The piece was written for the drummer Dimitris Tasoudis who is an equally able percussionist as a jazz drummer. I wanted to write a piece that would challenge him to draw together disparate elements of his playing experience, as well as pushing him to engage with new ideas. As such, the score makes constantly changing demands on the soloist, both in terms of notation, and also the approaches it takes to the drum kit. Each new performer should bring their own sound and approach to the piece, and I am very much looking forward to this performance by the equally talented Simon Roth. 

top

Emily Kalies:

Is pursuing a PhD at the University of York under Roger Marsh researching collaboration and multi-media.  Her work looks at the aesthetics of collaboration through composition and ways to create artistic equality within projects. Previously she has studied composition at NEC in Boston under Malcolm Peyton and Lee Hyla.

Works include collaborations with choreographers at the NSCD in Leeds.
 A group collaboration, as part of the Fresh Air -Quentington Sculpture show and is currently working and organizing a collaboration with the film artist Ellen Sebring at MIT and the environment artist Joan Brigham with Walter Dent as lighting designer.

noitcelfeRReflection
a multi-media piece that can be presented in two forms; a live version which is for live singer, tape and video and a DVD movie version. The concept originated from the Pillow Book a diary by Sei Shonagon completed in 1002. In this piece, friends submitted ‘diary’ entries that were turned into lyrics for the vocalist Suzanne Fatta to perform.  Two film students at York St. John University Rheya Brigden and Dan Vivash created the film that is projected for the live singer to interact with.

www.suzannefatta.com

Untitled: Nativity of the Minster
Collaboration between Emily Kalies and Michael Benner.  This collaboration was response based.  We wanted to create something that would showcase the history and architecture that makes York unique and to look at music that was created in York in and around York.  We started with the York Minster and attending the York Mass from there Michael created images that responded to these stimulus.  The music then responded to the images that were created.

STEAM:
A music video for kinetic art.

top

Judith Ring:

Ring recently completed a PhD in composition at the University of York under the supervision of Ambrose Field and Roger Marsh with the aid of the Elizabeth Maconchy Fellowship from the Arts Council of Ireland.

In July she was the guest composer at the Irish composition summer school working alongside Nicola LeFanu, Martin O'Leary and John Mclachlan.

Ring studied for her Bmus at University College Dublin, subsequently completing her MPhil in Music and Media Technologies at Trinity College Dublin with first class honours. At TCD she studied electro-acoustic composition under Donnacha Dennehy and Roger Doyle.

Accumulation won first prize for the International Luigi Russolo electronic music composition competition 2000, in Varese, Italy and it has been performed in Dublin and Germany including EXPO 2000 in Hannover.

Ring has written pieces for Concorde ensemble, the Crash Ensemble, Percusemble, Trio Scordatura, University of York chamber orchestra, and Bradyworks (Canada). She has written solo + tape pieces for Natasha Lohan (voice), Paul Roe (bass clarinet), Laura Moody (Cello), Damien Harron (percussion), Elisabeth Smalt (adapted viola), Malachy Robinson (double bass), Andre Leroux (tenor sax) and an acoustic piece for Rolf Hind (piano).

In the past Ring's works were used in Dance theatre of Irelands performances, Evidence and Prism. In 2005 and 2006 she collaborated with two choreographers, Anna Melander and Vince Virr from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD, England) on 4 dance pieces. She has also written the music to two short films, one of which, "Time and again" directed by Barry Dowling, was aired on Network 2's program Debut. In August 2002 she co-composed the music alongside Jürgen Simpson for video artist Clare Langans, piece Glass hour which has been exhibited in the Tate Liverpool, RHA Dublin and MoMa New York among others. Her compositions have been widely performed in Europe and the U.S.A.

www.judithring.com

Mouthpiece:

Mouthpiece was written in collaboration with mezzo-soprano, Natasha Lohan. For Sensorium it shall be performed by Michelle O'Rourke. We recorded a broad range of extended techniques and unusual noises to use as compositional material for the electronic part. The samples are used here in their raw recorded form with no alterations or processing of any sort. The piece may be performed with or without the live part.

top

Radek Rudnicki:

Radek Rudnicki (Rzeszow, Poland 23/07/1982) Polish Sound Artist, Sound Designer.
Interested in electronic music, improvisation and sound design by means of sound synthesis.

Since moving to the UK, worked closely with performers investigating the possibilities of improvisation and trying to use it with different art forms in unconventional way. Deeply interested in connecting sound and visual world. This was showed in pieces like ‘Greentooth’ installation made in collaboration with Hedonskate and 'Digital Garden' piece made with Rodrigo Garcia Dutra. Radek is currently PhD student at the University of York under Ambrose Field 's supervision. He have been shortlisted by SPNM last year.

Ink Dye:

The piece blurs the boundaries between installation and live performance,  improvisation and scored pieces it explores audio-visual hybrid art.
Visuals made by Jakub are all analogue and were used as an inspiration and a guide for musicians improvisation, which was then carefully edited, mixed and processed by Radek. During Sensorium you will see unique premiere of the piece with visuals scored to the fixed media track.

Visuals: Jakub Hader
Music: Radek Rudnicki in collaboration with:

Enrico Bertelli - vibes
Alex Harker - electric guitar
Dave Keegan - bass guitar
Chris Leedham - bass clarinet
Jo Murgatroyd - sax and clarinet
Zezo Olimpio - fender rhodes

top

Garrett Sholdice:

Garrett Sholdice (b.1983) is an Irish composer currently based in York, England.

His music has been performed all over Ireland, in Berlin, York, New York, Amsterdam, Ghent, at Klankenbos, an open-air sound installation space in Belgium, at the Galway Arts Festival, the Sligo New Music Festival, the Printing House Festival of New Music and the Ergodos Festival in Dublin, the York Late Music Festival and at the Spitalfields Festival in London.

He has has studied with Donnacha Dennehy and Nicola LeFanu. He is currently in the final year of a PhD in music composition (focusing on Just intonation) at the University of York, where his supervisor is William Brooks.

Garrett is a co-director of Ergodos (www.ergodos.ie) and an SPNM short-listed composer.

www.garrettsholdice.com

Trio # 2

Trio # 2 is a piece of flexible duration for an instrumentation of any three unlike instruments/voices. Preferably, one of the three should be able to render intervals in accurate Just intonation. Trio # 2 was premiered by Matthew Postle (trumpet), Benedict Schlepper-Connolly (violin) and myself (piano) in York, Summer  of 2007.

The piece is the first of several to be inspired by a fragment from a lecture given by composer John Cage in Darmstadt in 1958, entitled 'Changes'. The lecture is printed in Silence, a collection of Cage’s writings and lectures, first published in 1968. Cage says, in relation to his composition Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano: "The materials, the piano preparations, were chosen as one chooses shells while walking along a beach.. The form was as natural as my taste permitted..." Trio # 2 is about choosing shells and placing them in simple porcelain bowls...

Harmonium is an non-genre-specific ensemble of non-fixed instrumentation. Founded in Winter 2009 by its artistic director, composer Garrett Sholdice, Harmonium is named after a series of compositions by American experimentalist James Tenney (1934-2006), each a meditation on the nature of harmony.

Soundscape in Movement

Through weeks of intensive collaboration with choreographer, composer, musician and dancers, this choreography evolved into a landscape of intertwining encounters and fragile relationships evoked by chance methodologies. Each individually strong component exists on its own, but together creates a third voice.

top

Musicians:

Jonathan Sage (Clarinet):

Jonathan Sage is a freelance clarinettist based in York.

Educated at the University of York, England, Jonathan graduated with a BA (honours) in music in 2006. He then undertook a postgraduate degree in Music Performance under Bill Brooks and graduated in July 2008 (with distinction). His teachers include Alan Hacker, Lesley Schatzberger and Margaret Archibald and he has participated in master-classes with Alan Hacker, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Lesley Schatzberger, Matthew Hunt and Guy Eshed.

Jonathan made his concerto debut in 2002, playing the Weber Concertino with the Cambridge Youth Orchestra and since then has gone on to play as soloist with the London Mozart Players and the York Sinfonietta.

As a recitalist and ensemble musician, Jonathan has performed at the Dartington International Festival, the York Spring Festival, the Ergodos Festival the Late Music Festival (in which he was the soloist/director in a rare ‘all live’ performance of Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint), the 2007 International Conference on Music Since 1900, the York Microtonal Fayre and the University of York Concert Series.

Jonathan also has a passion for contemporary music and in November 2008 embarked on his first solo tour to Ireland performing works by Stockhausen, Carter, Sweeney and Garrett Sholdice, as well a new work from composer Jonathan Nangle, commissioned with funding from the Irish Arts Council.

Recent performances include a Hub Short at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival last November. The ‘Hub Short’ series gives up-and-coming performers a 20 minute slot in a day of concerts. Jonathan performed Bilinear by young English composer Richard Glover as well as New York Counterpoint by Steve Reich.

www.jonathansage.co.uk

Michelle O'Rourke (mezzo-soprano):

Irish mezzo-soprano Michelle O’Rourke has studied voice with English soprano Yvonne Seymour and performance practice with early music expert, keyboardist and conductor Peter Seymour. As a soloist, O’Rourke is particularly interested in Baroque vocal repertoire, contemporary vocal music and jazz, performing with, amongst others, Ergodos Voices, Chimera Ensemble, Gamelan Sekar Pethak, Tatenda, Harmonium, and her own Michelle O’Rourke Quartet. O'Rourke is currently pursuing a PhD in music performance at the University of York under the supervision of Dr. Jonathan Wainwright. Her research focuses on performance practice issues associated with English Odes of the Restoration period.

www.myspace.com/michelleo39rourke

Choreographer:

Silja Thomsen:

Silja is studying on the MA in choreography at The Northern School Of Contemporary Dance where she gained her undergraduate degree. She worked with choreographers Debbie Purtill, Hagit Bar and Anna Williams.

Silja won the NSCD Graduation Price which was awarded to an outstanding individual studying at postgraduate level.

For her final MA Choreography she collaborated closely with Garrett Sholdice and Jonathan Sage and the final choreography was performed at The Riley Theatre. This Performance is to be performed at Guildhall in York.

Dancers:

Nicholas Keegan:

Nicholas took ballet classes from a young age, becoming a senior Associate of the Royal Ballet School. He graduated Rambert School in 2008 with a BA (Hons) in Ballet and Contemporary Dance having worked with Kerry Nicholls. He also performed in Robert Cohan's 'Forest' which was recorded for a DVD celebrating his work. He has twice been involved with Leeds-based project RODA and he was a member of Verve 09 at The Northern School Of Contemporary Dance.

Jessica Hothersall:

After seeing Lewisham College's dance company perform, Jessica decided to become a dancer. She studied at Lewisham college before joining NSCD's BPA (Hons) degree in Contemporary Dance in 2005, majoring in choreography and regularly showing her own work. During her time at the school she worked with choreographers Debbie Purtill, Hagit Bar and Anna Williams. Jessica was a member of Verve 09 at The Northern School Of Contemporary Dance.

Leanne Pike:

Leanne is studying at The Northern School Of Contemporary Dance where she gained her undergraduate degree. She has worked extensively with choreographer Sue Lewis (Ffin Dance) and also with Phil Williams, Hellen Smith, Hagit Bar and Vanessa Haske. More recently she has collaborated with composer Emily Kalies and hopes to continue this relationship for future projects. Leanne was commissioned to choreograph for Verve 09 at Northern School Of Contemporary Dance.

top

Cindy Tong:

Cindy Tong is an electronic musician currently living in Singapore and goes by the moniker "Joyless".  A noted release of hers is a CD entitled "Disquiet Peace" released in 2001, a self-produced and engineered release where she recorded, mixed and played all the instruments.  It has gotten airplay and has received favourable reviews throughout major publications such as Recording Magazine (March '02) and Boston SoundCheck Magazine (April '02).

Contact: aiff@rocketmail.com | www.youtube.com/joy1ess

Ghost Unseen.

top

Tim Wright:

Tim Wright is a musician, composer and video artist living in the North of England. He is perhaps best known as a producer of idiosyncratic electronic dance music released under his own name and the pseudonym Tube Jerk. His music has been released by some of the key labels in the field including Tresor, Novamute, Sativae and GPR.

His recordings as Germ in the early 1990s are considered to have been pioneering in the then nascent electronica scene. Innovative and uncompromising, surreal and often disorientating, Germ offered glimpses of possible musical futures which have never been fully realised. Subsequent releases retained something of the Germ sound, but were aimed at the adventurous dancefloor. Remix credits range from Scorn through Cristian Vogel to Laurent Garnier and Goldfrapp.

Tim now works as sound engineer and composer for Tokyo based choreographer Saburo Teshigawara and his company Karas. Recent work includes music for the installations "Double District" (Yokohama Triennale (2008) and Shanghai eARTS Festival (2008)) and "Glass - Fragments of Time" (kon Gallery, Birmingham (2008)).

He is also a founder member of the group Sand (Soul Jazz Records).