MORE MORE MORE - Programme
Welcome to tonight's concert
We believe - especially now - that music matters to society, and the work of the London Sinfonietta with new music can act as a powerful catalyst for positive development in individuals and communities. Work with composers and artists can both reflect what is happening and, in some ways, influence change. As well as championing the power of new music as an art in itself, it is also important to us that we make a point of showcasing new work that engages with the way we live today. And, as always, we aim to give world-class performances that can be an inspiration to anyone who hears them.
We are pleased to be working with Matthew Herbert again – one of the most creative and inventive musical artists working today. It’s typical of him that his ‘response’ tonight directly engages with the world we make and live in, much as Andreas Gursky’s photography brings that into clear focus too.
We hope you enjoy this concert, whether you're attending in-person or watching online, and we hope you'll join us for future events.
Andrew Burke
Chief Executive and Artistic Director
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Matthew Herbert pianissimo (premiere)
Matthew Herbert with young musicians from North London The Melt (premiere)
Matthew Herbert more, more, more
Tim Gill cello
Torbjörn Hultmark soprano trombone
Oliver Lowe percussion
Hugh Jones electronics
Matthew Herbert live audio mix
Jessie Maryon Davies presenter
Tonight's performance is presented with the friendly support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
The Melt is co-commissioned by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust as part of its cultural programme Antarctica In Sight. This project also forms part of the London Sinfonietta Junior Academy, which is generously supported by The Leverhulme Trust.
Pianissimo
The premiere of a new piece which is part of a series of new works by Matthew Herbert that attempt to empower the performer at the expense of the composer. A precise but broad outline of the piece is described in text and it is up to the performer to decide the real shape of the work. Asked to play every note on their instrument as a series of layered samples, the performer gets to decide crucial factors in the work such as how rhythmic, how dissonant, how smooth or jagged the phrases are. In an evening of music designed to examine how much agency or complicity we have in the consequences of our actions, this piece asks a single performer to quietly shape a new world for us where every decision can be continuously heard in relation to the whole.
The Melt
If the ice melts one drop more would spill a lifetime of water
If the ice melts we’ll have to learn to swim
If the ice melts, destruction will be felt, icebergs tumbling, but still your engines rumbling, water levels rising but our earth not surviving
If the ice melts there will be the extinction of thousands of different species
If the ice melts the water would become so thickly spread that it would consume more than it evaporated
If the ice melts our history melts with it
(responses from young musicians as part of The Melt creative project)
United by different approaches to water, the piece tries to listen to the climate emergency through different sonic textures made by the young people using water in their homes. They themselves are just individuals, physically separated from each other but online. We know an accelerated Antarctic melt is underway but what role can we play as a group of musicians in the UK to stop it? On the screen we see a modern emergency whistle frozen in water that is 150,000 years old (kindly lent to us by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust). In the piece, however, we only hear the whistle when it’s too late.
Young music creators from our Partner Music Hubs:
Aaron, Lily, Lizzie, Ruben, Richard, Rebal, Tarrel, Zack
in collaboration with Matthew Herbert
With thanks to Camilla Nichol, Jessie Maryon Davies, Sam Underwood and our Partners at Enfield Music Service, Haringey Music Service and Waltham Forest Music Education Hub.
Being part of this project has made me understand that you can make music with anything and it can be powerful. The Melt project participant
More, more, more
His latest London Sinfonietta commission more, more, more responds to Gursky’s Untitled XIII (2002), a fascinating and unnerving photograph of a landfill site in Chimalhuacán, Mexico City. A comment on endless consumerism, more, more, more will be made from the contents of rubbish bins, and is a piece for two musicians and electronics. This fascinating piece, originally performed as the first in a series of gallery lates, offers a unique experience of Gursky’s work, as the music captures the rhythm, colour and complexity of his photographs.
MATTHEW HERBERT (b1972)
Matthew Herbert is a prolific and accomplished musician, artist, producer and writer whose range of innovative works extends from numerous albums (including the much-celebrated Bodily Functions) to Ivor Novello nominated film scores (Life in a Day) as well as music for theatre, TV, games and radio. He has performed solo, as a DJ and with various musicians including his own 18 piece big band all round the world from the Sydney Opera House, to the Hollywood Bowl and created installations, plays and opera.
He has remixed iconic artists including Quincy Jones, Serge Gainsbourg, and Ennio Morricone and worked closely over a number of years with musical acts as diverse as Bjork and Dizzee Rascal. He has been sampled by J Dilla for Slum Village and another of his pieces (Cafe de Flore) inspired a movie by Jean Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club). He has produced other artists such as Roisin Murphy, The Invisible, Micachu and Merz and released some of these works alongside others on his own label – Accidental Records. He also set up NX records with Goldsmiths University to support the release of music from alumni and others. Notable collaborators have included chef Heston Blumenthal, playwrights Caryl Churchill and Duncan Macmillan, theatre director Lyndsey Turner, musician Arto Lindsay and writer Will Self but he is most known for working with sound, turning ordinary or so-called ‘found sound’ into electronic music.
His most celebrated work ONE PIG followed the life of a pig from birth to plate and beyond. He is relaunching an online Museum of Sound and is the creative director of the new Radiophonic Workshop for the BBC. His debut play The Hush was performed at the National Theatre, his debut opera The Crackle at the Royal Opera House and he continues to work on projects for screen and stage - most recently the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman by Chilean director Sebastian Lelio. Matthew is also finishing his debut book called The Music for the publisher Unbound.
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