Sunday 23 October 2022, 2pm
John McCowen is a composer/clarinetist focused on extending the possibilities of the clarinet. His work has been described by The New Yorker as “the sonic equivalent of microscopic life viewed on a slide”. John's multiphonic approach embraces drones, difference tones, and beating harmonics as a means to squeeze out the compositional potential within a single, acoustic sound source. Documents of this practice have been released by Edition Wandelweiser, International Anthem, Astral Spirits, SUPERPANG, Dinzu Artefacts, and others. John was a 2017 & 2019 artist-in-residence at Lijiang Studio in Yunnan, China, and also the 2020 artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn. He received the Elizabeth Mills Crothers Award for excellence in music composition in 2016 from Mills College where he received an MA in Music Composition under the tutelage of Roscoe Mitchell. He currently resides in Reykjavik, Iceland.
John remains stubbornly dedicated to acoustic phenomena. His works do not utilize amplifier feedback or electronically-generated sounds unless specified.
Mengting Zhuo is an artist based in London, originally from Guangzhou, China. She composes situations with site, sound, body and time, in the forms of performance, participatory installation, and concerts. Often minimalist, subtle and intimate, her work invites the audience to reflect on themes of connection, transmission, contingency and distance.
Recently, she is exploring the politics of listening through a series of happenings predominantly using non-instruments, unwanted noise, found objects and the body.
As a performer and director, she has made encounters with audiences in theatres, galleries and other spaces, including a park, a beach, a karaoke club, a flat, and online. Her work has been presented internationally, including the UK, China, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Marjolaine Charbin is a French pianist performer based in London. After studying sound engineering and later jazz piano at the conservatoire in Brussels, she has developed a practice rooted in improvisation. Her sonic palette moves fluidly between prepared and unprepared piano: inside-piano techniques, objects, contact microphones and voice merge with the keyboard.
She has collaborated with a wide range of musicians including Eddie Prévost, Ute Kanngiesser, John Butcher, Phil Durrant, Bill Thompson, Artur Vidal, Chris Cundy, Angharad Davies, Grundik Kassiansky, Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, Dominic Lash, Maggie Nichols… as well as with dancers, theatre and film.
Drawing from her practice of musical, sonic and philosophical fragments that attracts her attention, Marjolaine approaches performance as a site of discovery and social reconstruction.
Latest releases include, on matchless recordings, a duet with Eddie Prévost “The Cry of a Dove Announcing Rain” and “The Art of Noticing”, with John Butcher, Ute Kanngiesser and Eddie Prévost, which was listed amongst the 10 best albums of the year 2023 by the New York City Jazz Review. She received a grant from the Arts Council England to develop her creative practice in 2022.
https://www.marjolainecharbin.com
https://www.instagram.com/marjolainecharbin/
https://marjolainecharbin.bandcamp.com
A founder-member of AMM (1965-2022)
“[Eddie Prévost’s] is one of the greatest metallurgists that music has produced. […] sparks delicately arcing through the air, of slow lava ingesting its surroundings, of the shifting grind of tectonic plates across each other, of the rustle and glint of a firebird darting between shadows, and of ore smashing into the surface of the earth; but perhaps this language is overwrought: all that needs to be remarked upon is Prévost's industry, his diligence.”
Nathan Moore — liner note to AMM’s ‘Indúsria’
Matchless Recordings mrcd105.
But beyond this work Prévost has also maintained a relationship with the jazz drum-kit.
“His free drumming flows superbly making perfect use of his formidable technique, but his most startling feature is his stylelessness. It’s as though there has never been an Elvin Jones or a Max Roach.” - review of a set with saxophonist Lou Gare, Melody Maker (27.03.1975)
“Prévost, meanwhile, was simply miraculous; it was fascinating to watch him and to compare his approach with that of a Kern or a Nilssen-Love. I can only say that he was possessed of an uncanny, burning intentness that navigated the ensemble through passages of stark, sculpted beauty, grave concentration and full-on, bristling energy.”
Blue Tomato, Vienna 2012. In concert with Marilyn Crispell and Harrison Smith. Richard Rees-Jones
“An excellent release from one of the finest percussionists around, jazz or otherwise.” review of Prévost’s solo CD ‘Collider’
Matchless Recordings mrcd106 – Brian Olewnic, Squidsear (2022).
“Relentlessly innovative yet full of swing and fire.” – Morning Star
