Wednesday 23 June 2021, 7.30pm
Elaine Mitchener is a contemporary vocalist, movement artist and composer working between the worlds of contemporary new music, experimental jazz / free improvisation and visual arts. She is founder of collective electroacoustic trio The Rolling Calf (with Jason Yarde and Neil Charles) and her sound works are held in a curated collection by George E Lewis at Darmstadt Festival.
Recent recordings includes Some Good News – a live album with Hamid Drake, William Parker, Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas (OTOROKU label) – and a special radio commission for Sons d’Hiver (Paris), and she is one of 50 selected exhibiting artists featured in the British Art Show 9 touring exhibition 21/22 and is a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist.
For Between The Lines, Elaine will be performing with dance artist Tommaso Petrolo with a captivating programme of works for voice, piano, and body. The performance will be followed by a Q&A with NTS DJ and radio host Zakia Sewell.
‘Any attempts at categorisation are doomed to fail’ – The Wire
‘Mitchener is a genre crossing virtuoso' - Financial Times
Elaine Mitchener is a veteran of vocal expression in the global Black Avant Garde, traversing free improvisation, cross-disciplinary music theatre and contemporary composition with clarity and joy.
Her debut album SOLO THROAT released in May 2024 under Café Oto’s OTOROKU label has been described as “An uncompromisingly imaginative approach to text that does credit to the power of the human voice, as well as the mind that pushes it on to previously unheard paths.” (Jazzwise)
Experimental musicians and improvisers she has worked with include Moor Mother, Joelle Leandre, Hamid Drake, William Parker, Pat Thomas, Black Top, David Toop, Xhosa Cole. Elaine is founder of the collective electroacoustic unit The Rolling Calf. Composers, visual artists and poets she has worked with include: George E Lewis, Jennifer Walshe, Matana Roberts; visual artists The Otolith Group, Christian Marclay, Sonia Boyce; Jay Bernard, Roy Claire Potter, Dante Micheaux; chamber ensembles Apartment House, ICE, Ensemble MAM, Klangforum Wien, Van Huynh Co.
Born in Rome Tommaso is a dance artist, choreographer and educator.
Tommaso has worked with renown composers such as Elaine Mitchener, Dai Fujikura, Tansy Davies, Matt Wright, Laure M. Hiendl and through these collaboration his practice has stretched across disciplines to incorporate extended forms of vocal improvisation with movement.
Based in the UK since 2016 he has collaborated as a performer with the likes of Van Huynh Company, for which he works as Artistic Assistant and Rehearsal Director, Tavaziva, Rob Heaslip Dance Company, Mathieu Geffré, Neus Gil Cortés, Joao Cidade, amongst others.
Tommaso is an active teacher delivering in renowned institutes in the UK, across Europe, U.S.A., Latin America, India and China, he regularly works with The Place, Tripspace, The Hub, Canterbury Christ Church University, London Studio Centre, Rambert.
