A Martian Sends a Postcard Home takes its name from a poem by Craig Raine that sought to re-see the world through bold acts of defamiliarisation. This night celebrates the Martianist turn in music, with an exploration of composers who have made the familiar fresh.
The night will include the European premiere of Norwegian composer Oyvind Torvund's lawless chamber work Untitled School/Mud Jam/Campfire Tunes, performed by the Plus Minus Ensemble, and Andrew Hamilton’s electrifying music for people who like art. In Mezcal No. 8 Swedish composer Hanna Hartman transforms a copse of steel rods and washers into a sounding presence.
We honour two standard bearers of 'making strange' in composition: Helmut Lachenmann and Dieter Schnebel. Aisha Orazbayeva performs Lachenmann's Toccatina alongside a recital of Russian poems by Mayakovsky and Yesenin that live and breathe the idea of estrangement or ostranenie.
Meanwhile, composer and musician Christian Kesten presents Schnebel's celebrated Maulwerke where vocal technique is pulled apart into its constituent parts, alongside his own Zunge Lösen that seeks to stage the tongues of three performers.
The night ends with a visit from Cairo's E.E.K. Under the fingers of Islam Chipsy, a digital keyboard is wrenched into explosive new sonic territory, articulating the sound of post-Tahrir electro-chaabi
The Simon and Garfunkel Story
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