Fantastic programme of improvisation and composed works curated by conductor Ilan Volkov including a 20 piece string section performing Robert Ashley's In Memoriam, CRAZY HORSE (Symphony) (1963) and Toshi Ichiyanagi's Stanzas for Strings (1960), a solo performance for bass clarinet by Yoni Silver and the Glasgow-based guitar/drums unit With Lumps (Fritz Welch & Neil Davidson)

The string section includes: Matthew Barley, Angharad Davies, Oliver Coates, Yoni Silver, Jennifer Allum, Lucy Railton, Aisha Orazbayeva, Ashot Sarkissjan, Noura Sanatian, Dominic Lash, Tom Wheatley, Michael Duch, Kaffe Matthews, David Lasserson, Margrit Hasler, Robert Ames, Daniel Pioro, Marcio Mattos, Ute Kanngiesser and Ilan Volkov.

ILAN VOLKOV

Ilan Volkov, began his career as Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, and was Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 2003-2009. Since then he has been the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor.

He is a frequent guest conductor with orchestras around the world, including BBC Scottish, and his recordings have won critical acclaim as well as prestigious awards. Volkov is very active in the new music scene and has premiered many contemporary orchestral works, including compositions by Jonathan Harvey, Hans Abrahamsen, Unsuk Chin, Mark-Anthony Turnage and others. Ilan Volkov also works regularly with leading ensembles in modern music such as Ensemble Modern and Musik Fabrik. Volkov has curated various new music events in Israel over the last six years including Hafarot Seder and Hapzura. He has also collaborated with Iancu Dumitrescu, AMM, John Butcher, John Oswald, Zeena Parkins and John Zorn to mention a few. Volkov is a member of the improvisation trio Mines, an ensemble consisting of two violins and drums.

TOSHI ICHIYANAGI

Toshi Ichiyanagi is one of the most important composers of the Japanese avant-garde - This piece 'Stanzas for Strings' dates from 1960, just after he'd returned to Japan after studying at the Julliard School under Vincent Persichetti. Ichiyanagi was briefly married to Yoko Ono and he'd also met John Cage whilst in America and was responsible for bringing both Cage and David Tudor to Japan for the first time in 1962 and 1964. Throughout the 60s he participated in a wide range of concerts, happenings and events, many at the Sogetsu Centre for the Arts. His later work turned first towards minimalism and later a deep exploration of Japanese traditional music which he fused with Western classical forms.

Toshi Ichiyanagi and the Art of Indeterminacy By Yayoi Uno Everett

ROBERT ASHLEY

Robert Ashley, a distinguished figure in American contemporary music, holds an international reputation for his work in new forms of opera and multi-disciplinary projects. His recorded works are acknowledged classics of language in a musical setting. He pioneered opera-for-television.The operatic works of Robert Ashley are distinctly original in style, and distinctly American in their subject matter and in their use of American language. Fanfare Magazine calls Ashley's Perfect Lives "nothing less than the first American opera...", and The Village Voice comments, "When the 21st Century glances back to see where the future of opera came from, Ashley, like Monteverdi before him, is going to look like a radical new beginning." A prolific composer and writer, Ashley's operas are "so vast in their vision that they are comparable only to Wagner's Ring cycle or Stockhausen's seven-evening Licht cycle. In form and content, in musical, vocal, literary and media technique, they are, however, comparable to nothing else." (The Los Angeles Times).

On In Memoriam CRAZY HORSE (symphony)

"This piece is scored for 20 (or more) wind, string or other sustaining instruments in five (or more) groups of four (or more) instruments per group. The score is notated in the form of a circle with 64 numbered radii. There is a juxtaposition throughout the piece of even and odd, regular and irregular, with the durations of sound and silence given in the notation -- especially of different "states of ensemble [e.g., as noisy/dissonant as possible, as pure/harmonious as possible]" (Ashley). An orchestra of "organic groups" is created: "The purpose is, perhaps, not just a new 'freedom' for the individual performer" (a performer chooses the sounds he/she makes) "but a contemporary 'freedom-obligation' that can bring the performer back into the orchestra with a more imaginative role"; the sound is contributed to the overall ensemble sound-density of that performer's particular instrumental group. The resultant massed orchestral sound is one of a constantly fascinating field of extremes of sound in motion." -- "Blue" Gene Tyranny, allmusic.com

YONI SILVER

Yoni Silver is a multidisciplinary musician, bass clarinetist, saxophonist, violinist, composer, improvisor and performer. An active player in the Israeli contemporary, noise and free improv scenes, Silver has performed with musicians such as Birgit Uhler, Damon Smith, Alex Drool, Wolfgang Fuchs, Steve Noble, Grisha Shakhnes and others. He is a member of the International Hyperion Ensemble lead by Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram, and is also an avid solo performer.

As composer and arranger he has written for and collaborated with Ilan Volkov in Tectonics Tel Aviv 2013, the Israeli Contemporary Players, the Israeli Philharmonic, the Tel Aviv Soloist Ensemble, radical documentary director Avi Mugrabi, artist Gilad Ratman for the venice biennale 2013 etc. Silver's instrumental style is a combination of an explorative approach towards the sonic capabilities of the instrument, with an aesthetic drawing on noise and sound-evolution oriented approaches such as spectralism.

"So surrealistic that it could be perfect for an imaginary remake of the soundtrack for visionary movies such as The Holy Mountain by Jodorowski or even Simon of The Desert by Bunuel, a sort of monody whereas the recording technique seems to be intended to highlight the most experimental possible expressions which clarinet could offer. The frenzy tapping on holes, the circular breathing and the weirdy insufflation sound are just parts of rhythmical and tone-colour research more than of a melodic one. Breath, air, saliva and skin sound like having become essential elements of the instrument, materializing almost an interpenetration with any part of it." -- Vito Camarretta (Chain DLK)