When the BEAST Team gathered many months ago to start developing the theme of this year’s festival, we were inspired by the notion that despite years of brutally negative politics and global turmoil, we might, through our shared love of this music, find a way to encourage something positive and optimistic, that embraced the possibilities of reconciliation and restoration. Thus…
Since the very outset of our duo, working with electronics has been central to our practice. Our very first commission, for the Cologne Philharmonie’s TripClubbing series back in 2016, was for a new piece by Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, a composer who immediately opened us up to not only the complex interactions between our two instruments, but how those extremes of…
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the relationship between performance and the performative gesture, and the acousmatic. I have spent most of my composing life in the realm of mixed music and live electronics. I have always taken inspiration from performers in two (related) ways. Most importantly as living and life experiencing individuals – I listen to their performances, interpretations, personalities…
Some thoughts about listening in these confined moments… My time in Birmingham twenty years ago, working towards the Ph.D. with Jonty Harrison, was an extraordinary period in my creative life. After composing already for many years, it was a chance to get again very detailed feedback, and to learn more and think more in-depth about the impact of interpretation in…
A few years ago Scott Wilson asked me if I would be interested in creating something for BEAST. This was something of a surprise because I used to think of BEAST as a forum for a sort of music that I didn’t make. I have always been fascinated by electronic music (within which I, perhaps rather cheekily, include electroacoustic music,…