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Threads 
Music for Voice & Piano

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Please note: this event is in the past

Cristina Grifone, David Ryan & Paul Jackson
Overview
Performers
Programme

David Ryan has curated this evening featuring performances of his recent works for voice and piano together with two pieces by the American composer Terry Jennings.

The ‘threads’ of the title refers to the interconnection of poetic texts, from contemporary author Martha Kapos, to Richard Brautigan, Walt Whitman, all the way back to ancient Greek and Roman epigrams, resulting in the songs themselves being an interweaving through these different temporalities and approaches to sound. It also refers to the inclusion of two piano pieces by Terry Jennings. Jennings is the least known of the minimalist innovators of the 1960s, but was an important and influential part of the La Monte Young/Yoko Ono scene of the early 1960s; his music remains seldom performed and unpublished, although it has a hypnotic and tranquil beauty. Significant works by Jennings will be featured in each half of the concert, Winter Sun (1965) and Winter Trees (1966). Ryan has commented “I see Jennings’ music as a thread, even if from a very different perspective, connecting with my own approach to sound and space in composition, and so brings here an archival connection to this current project”. 

You can check out David Ryan's original works here.

For more information, please contact David Ryan here.

Performers

Cristina Grifone has performed with leading ensembles including the Nuova Orchestra Alessandro Scarlatti, Musica Fiorita Ensemble and Orchestra, and Antonio Florio’s I Turchini, for many concerts.  She has also been involved, in parallel, with contemporary music.  Recordings have featured her singing Handel, Veneziano, Cimarosa, Perti, and Porpora for Glossa, Pan Classics, and Brilliant Classics labels.  


Paul Jackson is a pianist, conductor, musicologist and lecturer, based in Cambridge, UK. He has performed many modern and contemporary works including concertos by Stravinsky, Bartok and orchestral works by Berio. An authority on the music of the Australian composer, Percy Grainger, he is Editor of The Grainger Journal and President of the Percy Grainger Society, based in New York.


David Ryan is a visual artist as well as improvising musician. Although mainly autodidact as a composer, he received some lessons from jazz musician Don Rendell. Recent compositions include  Aphorisms 1-3, (2019 - 22) Fields and Refrains (2021) and Inscriptions (2021-2022) which has been recently performed at Ljubljana City Museum, Slovenia and Schrattenbach Opera, Olomouc, Czech Republic.  
 

Programme

David Ryan
Smile Variations - excerpts (Martha Kapos) 
Two Whitman Poems for an Italian Speaker
10 Songs After Richard Brautigan - excerpts
Inscriptions - excerpts (various archaic poets) 


Terry Jennings
Winter Sun 
Winter Trees 

COVID-19 precautions

Although the government has lifted many of the requirements around COVID-19 isolation rules, we are aware that many of our visitors are vulnerable and we want everyone to feel safe and comfortable. As such, we are continuing to provide hand sanitiser at our entrances, keep windows open to increase ventilation where possible, and maintaining our reduced capacity of 80%. As audience members, we ask that you do not attend if you are showing symptoms or are testing positive, and that you wear a face covering if possible. If you have any concerns, please contact us on 020 8348 8716 and we will do our best to accommodate you.