LONDON SINFONIETTA & MARIUS NESET
LONDON SINFONIETTA & MARIUS NESET
Maximalist saxophones merge with lush orchestral work in two world premieres
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Composer and performer Ashkan Layegh's latest piece Ephemerality and Recurrence, brings together the four musicians of his own quartet with four musicians from the London Sinfonietta. His compositional and improvising techniques transform his influences from Persian music into something about the present, rather than a reference to the past.
This new London Sinfonietta commission will be premiered on Thursday 20 November 2025 as part of the London Jazz Festival.
This composition has evolved out of the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future programme with support from the Jerwood Foundation, PRSF and Michael & Patricia McLaren Turner
Ashkan Layegh is an Iranian composer/improviser/multi-instrumentalist and visual artist concerned with self-reflexive structures. His music has been performed by his own ensembles, including the Phemo Quartet, at such venues as Kings Place, Southbank Centre and Wigmore Hall as well as by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Riot Ensemble, Septura Brass, Chroma Ensemble, Temporal Harmonies Inc and an upcoming project with London Sinfonietta.
Ashkan has trained as a traditional Persian setar player and improviser since an early age— heavily influencing his syntactical-compositional mindset— and has appeared as Electric Guitarist and Alto Saxophonist on stage with his own ensembles. He also studied architecture for two years, which promoted his interest in a wide range of arts, including cinema, painting and sculpture. He is currently studying for a Doctorate degree in composition at the Royal Academy of Music, where he gained his Master’s degree as composer (DipRAM) and Bachelor’s degree as a pianist (1st Class Honours)— the first Iranian to do so since the 1979 Revolution.
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