Launch night for violinist Aisha Orazbayeva's second album 'The Hand Gallery', her first for PRAH Recordings – the new label set-up by Moshi Moshi's Stephen Bass. ‘The Hand Gallery’ is an album experience dedicated to the process of taking the violin sound apart and putting it back together again, and offers music by Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Elvis Presley, John Cale and Aisha Orazbayeva.

Alongside a selection of music from the album, the evening will also feature a special performance of violin strings bowed by spinning LPs, and Morton Feldman’s 1982 piece ‘For John Cage’ with pianist Mark Knoop.

“Profoundly radical and inventive…” - The Sound Projector

“My Latitude highlight was Aisha Orazbayeva doing outsider music on a violin on the Late Junction stage…” - Jon Ronson



AISHA ORAZBAYEVA

Violinist and musician Aisha Orazbayeva is in demand with a repertoire extending from Bach and Telemann to Lachenmann and Nono. As a soloist she has performed at the Aldeburgh, Radio France Montpellier, Klangspuren and Latitude festivals, and venues including Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York and La Maison de Radio France in Paris.

Her acclaimed debut album “Outside” features a unique, multi-location recording of Sciarrino’s “Six Caprices” produced with Leo Abrahams, Ravel’s Violin Sonata, and “OUR”, a violin-computer concerto composed with VCS3 pioneer Peter Zinovieff.

Aisha has worked with ensembles including the London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern, and has performed live on BBC Radio 3 and 4, Resonance FM, France Musique and Kazakh National TV. She also co-directs London Contemporary Music Festival with Lucy Railton, Igor Toronyi-Lalic and Sam Mackay.

aishaorazbayeva.wordpress.com




MARK KNOOP

London based pianist and conductor Mark Knoop is known for his fearless performances and individual interpretations. He has commissioned and premiered countless new works and worked with many respected composers, and also brings fresh approaches to the standard and 20th-century repertoire. He is currently Turner Sims Fellow at the University of Southampton.

Mark has appeared throughout Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia and in New Zealand, South Korea, Mongolia, United States of America, Canada and at festivals including the Transit, Ultima, Huddersfield, Spitalfields, Borealis, Lucerne, Spor, Melbourne, and Adelaide Festivals, and the ISCM World Music Days.

He performs with such groups as Plus-Minus (London/Brussels), Letter Piece Company (London/Brussels), musikFabrik(Köln) and Apartment House (London). His recordings of music by John Cage, Richard Beaudoin, and David Lumsdaine have been critically acclaimed.

markknoop.com


Morton Feldman – For John Cage (1982)

For John Cage is a 70 minute piece for violin and piano. Like a canvas of sound it’s hypnotic, still and mesmerising.

“My music is like Webern. Only a little bit longer.”

Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was an American composer known for his preference for soft dynamics. In his own words, “..because when it’s loud, you can’t hear the sound. You hear its attack. Then you don’t hear the sound, only in its decay. And I think that’s essentially what impressed Boulez. That he heard a sound, not an attack, emerging and disappearing without attack and decay, almost like an electronic medium.”