Murmurists is the name Anthony Donovan gives to what he makes as a composer. Murmurists began as a solo art project as long ago as 1991; subsequently developing, through myriad fluid stages, to include small-scale live groups, usually improvised, to more recent highly-structured recordings, wherein speech and narrative are central components, with an international array of voice-artists performing Donovan's prose. Murmurists is by now also a large-scale cross-disciplinary live act, of anywhere between 10 and 20 persons, and encompasing spoken word, contemporary dance and theatrical elements, around musicians and artists drawn from the best of the UK experimental scene, all reacting to graphic scores and timings devised by Donovan as a strategy to offer live, semi-improvised versions of his written material.
Members are associated with projects such as Henry Cow, Stars of the Lid, Juxtavoices, Faust, Black Howler, Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere, Acid Mothers Temple, Crush!!!, Dunning/Webster, Destroyevsky, The Artaud Beats, Redstart, London and Birmingham Improvisers Orchestras, Echo City and Union Furnace, as well as collaborations with artists as great and diverse as John Zorn, Adam Bohman, Chris Cutler, Bryan Lewis Saunders, Bob Cobbing, Lol Coxhill, Mark Wastell, Mick Beck, Pat Thomas, Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, Evan Parker, John Langford, Gary Lucas, Sharon Gal, Damo Suzuki, Ingrid Plum, Paul Hession, Charlie Collins, Bela Emerson, Steve Beresford and Yoko Miura.
On this occasion, Murmurists will be: Martin Archer (bass clarinet, recorder, voice), Mark Browne (soprano sax, percussion, voice), Michael Clough (foley, voice), Annie Dee (foley, voice), Anthony Donovan (voice, bass, film), Jo Dyer (dance, voice), Geoff Leigh (flute, soprano sax, voice), Jane Munro (dance, voice), Anthony Osborne (alto sax, voice), Rosie Osborne (foley, voice), KT Reeder (trombone, voice), Carolyn Roy (dance, voice), Walt Shaw (percussion, voice) and Paul Shearsmith (trumpet, voice).
https://www.facebook.com/Murmurists
https://alrealonmusique.bandcamp.com
