Nonclassical: the greenhouse effect
The meeting of the natural and human worlds: this immersive experience invites you to listen to new music as you reflect on our relationship with nature.
Unlike traditional concerts, this experience actively encourages you to explore the lush greenery, tinkling water, concrete, steel and glass of the Conservatory while you listen to music. Wander amid the 1,500 plant species and discover work by some of the most exciting contemporary classical composers and performers, all of whom have been reflecting on the climate crisis.
Equally divergent from a ‘normal’ concert is that many works use unconventional instruments, from single-use plastic to harps played by the wind and triangles made from steel bars usually found in reinforced concrete.
In many ways, then, this has all the hallmarks you’d expect from a Nonclassical show. The promoter, record label and events producer has a well-deserved reputation for defying convention and sharing innovative music in non-traditional performance spaces.
Among the array of new works will be the first performance of sculptor and musician Marcus Vergette’s Tintinnabulation, which uses the sound of bells he made by hand, accompanied by piano, double bass and bird calls.
The work explores the idea of a world with birds and a world without them. Listen to the sounds of bells on wheels and smaller, handheld bells as you wander around the Conservatory and discover changing experiences to the sound as you move in relation to them. ‘Your movement alters the sound because bells create a complex resonance that changes according to your location as opposed to stringed instruments such as the piano and the bass,’ he says. ‘It’s like a rainbow – everyone can see it, but it’s different for each person.’
Vergette is particularly interested in the resonance of bells and the things that happen while they’re ringing. ‘Different frequencies appear to blossom out of the reverberation. And that’s what I want to play with,’ he says. ‘Bells create a very unusual type of soundwave. It’s like a giant vibrating jelly because the whole cone reverberates. When you play a string, it’s just a little sound through space and time. Whereas when you get caught inside a bell and the frequencies it creates, some are hardly audible, but you still feel them.’
Tintinnabulation was made during the first lockdown, when all the bells he’d created were on his farm. ‘I decided to record them all together, as it was unlikely that so many of them would ever be together again,’ he says. ‘Tintinnabulation is composed using studio recordings of my bells and recordings of them outside, with birdsong in the background. The composition utilises the interaction of the bells and the birdsong for its harmonic and melodic content.’
There will also be three tracks by Quinta (the stage name for London-based multi-instrumentalist Katherine Mann). They were written on Aeolian harps she made by hand while on a residency on the Greek island of Euboea, where a strong summer wind called the Meltemi blows every year. These instruments are ‘played’ by the wind and are named after the Greek god of the wind, Aeolus.
‘My album combines acoustic instrumentation (in the form of strings) and electronics, improvisation and composed material,’ she says. ‘The aim was to create music that seemed organically generated, that didn’t seem overburdened by human intervention. I hoped it would sound as if it had sprung from the air, trees and mountains. I realised early on that I couldn’t force the Aeolian harps to sing: I had to wait for a collaboration with nature. I wanted to create music that reflected this relationship.’
We hear three tracks today: Meltemia – named for the summer winds that were the context for her harps’ first outing; Dasos, which is Greek for ‘woodland’ and features rich, rumbling double bass underneath the bird- and insect-like textures of the harps’ upper strings; and Chloris, named after the mythical character abducted by the god of the west wind, Zephyrus.
‘For me, any performance with the harps demands a unique environment, as their sound is quite otherworldly and ethereal,’ says Quinta. ‘I’ve only shown them once before – on an Athens rooftop at sunset. The setting of the Barbican Conservatory and the theme of climate seem an ideal context for another sharing.’
Also being performed is Nonclassical founder and composer Gabriel Prokofiev’s Tracing Contours, Lines & Planes, which is inspired by the architecture of the Barbican itself. The London Triangle Orchestra will perform it on specially constructed instruments made from rebar, the steel rods used to reinforce concrete.
Composer and sound artist Claudia Molitor employs single-use plastic to create sounds and effects in her piano work Polymer Hauntings, a requiem to fossil fuels and one of their most prevalent, insidious products. Yshani Perinpanayagam and Katherine Tinker will perform on a plastic sheeting-covered piano, with single-use plastic bags and containers placed inside according to the composer’s directions. ‘I hope Polymer Hauntings will become unperformable in the very near future due to its need for everyday, single-use plastic,’ Molitor says. ‘In this sense, I hope it is its own requiem.’
Carola Bauckholt has written several works which feature birdsong. Today we’ll hear Doppelbelichtung (the German word for ‘double exposure’), which deploys violins around the Conservatory, some of which have small speakers inside them from which electronic bird song emanates. Live violinists perform in dialogue with electronic reproductions, reflecting the sounds of the wild. ‘Today’s technology allows us closely to examine bird calls as though under a microscope, enabling us to create intriguing musical fusions,’ Bauckholt says.
Abstruckt create percussion from flower pots, teacups and other random objects to perform works by Andy Akiho, David Lang and Steve Reich. And in the final show, 16 lamps from Mátyás Wettl’s Nocturne will cast a warm glow over the evening’s music-making.
© James Drury
Details
Programme and performers
Gabriel Prokofiev Tracing Contours, Lines & Planes for ReBar Triangle
Marcus Vergette Tintinnabulation
Quinta Meltemia, Dasos & Chloris
Andy Akiho Pillar No 4
Claudia Molitor Polymer Hauntings
Steve Reich Music for pieces of wood (excerpt)
Carola Bauckholt Doppelbelichtung
David Lang So Called Laws of Nature (movement 3) (afternoon only)
Mátyás Wettl Nocturne (evening only)
Abstruckt
Claudia Molitor
Katherine Tinker
Laura Moody
Linda Jankowska
London Triangle Orchestra
Gabriel Prokofiev
Marcus Vergette
Matthew Bourne
Emma Smith*
Tansy Spinks
Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris
Wiebke Leister
Yshani Perinpanayagam
*Quinta is no longer able to perform for health reasons. We are grateful to Emma Smith who replaces her at short notice.
Artist biographies
nonclassical is a music promoter, record label and events producer presenting the best new classical, experimental and electronic music. Crossing genre and defying convention, we develop, produce and promote innovative music – supporting emerging artists and bringing new music to new audiences.
Founded in 2004 by composer Gabriel Prokofiev, nonclassical began as a club night focused on presenting new music in non-traditional performance spaces. They have since presented events across the UK and worldwide, and their record label is home to artists including Tansy Davies, Aïsha Orazbayeva, Gabriel Prokofiev, Langham Research Centre, Tom Richards and many more.
nonclassical is based in London and led by Executive Director Natalia Franklin Pierce with a small, but perfectly formed team. Explore nonclassical's recent releases on their bandcamp page.
Formed in 2014, Abstruckt are one of the most exciting new percussion ensembles to come out of the UK. With a focus on theatrical performance, this ensemble reworks its repertoire to fit the space, creating an immersive experience for the audience. Abstruckt are formed of members Joe Richards, Angela Hui Wai Nok, Emma Arden, and Elsa Bradley.
Katherine is a pianist and performer whose practice embraces classical and contemporary music, performance art and opera. She made her solo debut at the BBC Proms in 2019.
Laura Moody is a composer, cellist, vocalist, songwriter and theatre performer from the UK. Her work focuses on storytelling, ritual, the expressive potential of musicians’ physicality and the transformation of spaces through sound, music and movement.
Linda Jankowska (Poland/UK) is a musician whose artistic practice orbits around long-term collaborations and multifaceted modes of working with sound that stretch her limitations. Primarily a violinist, she works at an intersection of contemporary instrumental performance, improvisation and composition. She is also an active concert producer, contemporary performance researcher and educator. Linda is the founding member of Distractfold Ensemble.
Marcus Vergette (born 1961) is a sculptor and musician. His work has been exhibited across the UK and Europe including at Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice, Whitechapel Gallery, Bristol Museum, Peninsula Arts, and Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge. He has made public sculpture in Hungary, Armenia, Czech Republic, USA, The Green Line (no man’s land) Nicosia Cyprus, and at sites across the UK including Leicester Botanical Gardens and City Quay in St Katharine's Dock. His work is in public collections including Tate Modern, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and The David Attenborough Building at the University of Cambridge. Over the last twelve years Vergette has been creating a constellation of site-specific bell installations in coastal locations around the UK, designed to toll on the high tide – the Tide and Time Project – to alert local communities to rising sea levels. He lives and works in Devon where he and his wife have been farming and practising nature conservation and ecological land management for over thirty years. His album, Tintinnabulation, is available on Nonclassical from 9 March as limited-edition vinyl and digital download and purchasable today with his hand-built clay bird whistles for £40.
Marcus will be joined by pianist Matthew Bourne, who has a reputation as a fearlessly unpredictable pianist and composer, and a passionate explorer of sound. Marcus’ bells will be played by Abstruckt.
Hand-built ‘re-bar’ triangles make up Gabriel Prokofiev’s collection of interludes for the London Triangle Orchestra. Re-bar is the type of steel rod used for the inner structure in all reinforced concrete buildings, including the Barbican. The newly-formed group will use these surprisingly resonant, typically un-heard steel rods to perform a selection of new compositions throughout the concert programme, helping to guide the audience through the landscape of the Conservatory.
Gabriel Prokofiev is a London-based composer, producer, DJ and founder of Nonclassical, the record label, event promoter and artist development charity responsible for today’s event.
Quinta is a London-based music-maker and multi-instrumentalist. Her dad gave her this name when she was a baby as she was the youngest of five and a girl. Part of a new movement of independently-minded experimental female cross-over artists making work at the intersection of art/new music, electronics, the DIY, visual/video art, and pop, Quinta is particularly interested in improvisation, electronic interfacing and new instruments. Her album Aeolian Mixtape is available now on Nonclassical as CD or digital download, as are the limited-edition screen prints that form the artwork for the album.
Meltemia, Dasos & Chloris will be performed by Emma Smith (violin), Linda Jankowska (violin), Laura Moody (cello), and Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris (double bass), the latter of whom appears on her album.
Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris PhD, is a sound artist, performer and educator. His work includes compositions, audiovisual installations, experimental music-theatre performances, and interactive visual works. He is regularly commissioned music for theatre and dance performances. Aside from his creative labour, he is an Associate Lecturer at National & Kapodistrian University of Athens.
As a multi-genre chamber musician, orchestral pianist and music director, Yshani has performed at venues from Wigmore Hall to the London Palladium, at events from Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival to the Barbican Mime Festival, and with artists from the Philharmonia to Nina Conti. She is pianist of the Del Mar Piano Trio and Carismático Tango Band, and a regular guest broadcaster on BBC Radio 3.
Claudia Molitor is a composer, artist and performer whose work draws on traditions of music and sound art, and also extends to video, performance and fine art practices. Exploring the relationships between listening and seeing as well as embracing collaboration as compositional practice is central to her work.
Claudia’s work is regularly commissioned, performed and broadcast throughout Europe, working with festivals such as Wien Modern, hcmf//, Spor, BBC Proms and Sonica and organisations such as Tate Britain, NMC Recordings and the Science Museum. Recent work includes Sonorama with Electra Productions, Turner Contemporary and the British Library, Vast White Stillness for Spitalfields Festival and Brighton Festival and The Singing Bridge, installed at Somerset House during Totally Thames 2016. Her solo album Have you ever is released on Nonclassical as CD and digital download.
Andy Akiho’s collection Seven Pillars is an eleven-movement suite, comprising of seven quartets surrounding four solos. Initially commissioned by Sandbox Percussion, this large-scale work is inspired by architecture, and was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
Andy Akiho is a 'trailblazing' (Los Angeles Times) Pulitzer Prize finalist and GRAMMY-nominated composer whose bold works unravel intricate and unexpected patterns while surpassing preconceived boundaries of classical music. Known as 'an increasingly in-demand composer' (New York Times), Akiho has earned international acclaim for his large-scale works that emphasize the natural theatricality of live performance.
