The Â鶹ԼÅÄ Concert Orchestra lends its powerful sound to an eclectic range of pioneering artists.
Breaking free of the usual concert conventions, the performances are punctuated by interviews with Elizabeth Alker revealing insights into the music.
Currently scouring the musical landscape for exciting new sounds at Radio 3, Alker is also a host at 6 Music, and enjoys the overlap: ‘Both appeal to curious listeners and people who love music.’ She has co-curated this concert series with its conductor André de Ridder.
One of Alker’s favourite hard-to-categorise composers is Daniel Avery, whose expansive, intuitively mood-altering music contains elements of IDM, house, shoegaze and techno.
Afrodeutsche is Henrietta Smith-Rolla, a composer, producer and DJ who draws on influences including Afrofuturistic electro and techno, classical solo piano and Detroit legacy house. She once explained to FACT Magazine that as a child, she was equally excited by Soul II Soul’s 1980s club classic ‘Back to Life’ and Rimsky-Korsakov’s enduring orchestral interlude Flight of the Bumblebee.
In a career that’s taken her from bedroom beats to transcendent live shows, Aïsha Devi employs unearthly vocals and shimmering synths to create musical mantras. Explaining that from her perspective, ‘clubs are the new temples’, she casts herself as an artist cum shaman, setting out to bring audiences to a heightened state of consciousness.
Programme to include:
Daniel Avery (arr. Quinta) Unclassified: Song for the Swordsman
Afrodeutsche (arr. Dave Foster) Promises
Aisha Devi (arr. Robert Ames) Aethernal Score