BY JOSEPH ASQUITH, LEAD WRITER (EDUCATION)
Daniel Elms, Roopa Panesar, and Coby Sey
New Music Biennial, Coventry
Drapers Hall and HMV Empire, 24 April
When it’s a sunny spring weekend in England, one must ride with the positivity by doing something soothing, inspiring and enlightening.
For this, New Music Biennial in Coventry was ideal.
Celebrating its tenth year, New Music Biennial — a PRS Foundation initiative that’s free for listeners to attend — comprises 20 new compositions. Each responds in its own way to the universal hardships faced by people through the past two years. I was able to see three of these 20 compositions.
The first was Bethia, composed by Daniel Elms (pictured below). This work was written for four male singers, carillon bells, acoustic piano, synthesiser, and trumpet, accompanied by a short film. The performance was a dedication to Elms’ maritime hometown Hull.
A poignant nostalgia was interwoven with the subtle references to sea shanties, hymns, and work songs. Indeed, the film created by David Briggs was a montage of historical footage of Hull’s industrial and maritime identity. One could certainly empathise with this sentimental reminiscence of Elms’ hometown via this cleverly done marriage of film, electronic sound effects, and acoustic performance.
The second performance I saw was The Crossing, a raga by sitarist Roopa Panesar (pictured below), pianist Al MacSween and sound designer Camilo Tirado. With the raga scale and melodic motifs established in the beginning on the sitar, a tranquil dialogue between the sitar and piano commenced, with the slow introductory section, which was said to represent a peaceful morning. This then developed into more virtuosic and complex passages. With sprightly scale runs, decorous harmonics, and lively pitch bends on the sitar, the piece eventually reached a cathartic apotheosis, with the piano solo in this climax bringing to mind romantic period repertoire by Maurice Ravel or Camille Saint-Saëns.
The acoustic space and sound quality were craftily engineered and enhanced by Tirado to make the performance all the more ethereal. Based on the traditions of Hindustani Baithak performances, The Crossing achieved its aims of an intimate setting between the performers and audience aided by the sublime interior of Drapers Hall.
The third performance I saw was The Vestry, composed by musician-DJ Coby Sey (featured photo). Performed by Sey himself, in collaboration with members of the London Contemporary Orchestra, the work was scored for two marimbas, viola, cello, an array of experimental percussion (including a cake tin), electric bass and keyboard synthesiser, along with an electronic soundboard.
This performance was a seamless confluence of drawn-out acoustic lyricism of the bowed string instruments, reverberate marimbas, and the incorporeal wash of electronic sound effects. The unconventional percussive paraphernalia allowed for a rich, yet not overstated, unique blend of woody and metallic tone colours. This whole experience was highly meditative and edifying, with one feeling very much welcomed into Sey’s own compositional idiom of weaving acoustic orchestral instrumentation with DJ-influenced electronic tone colours.
With the preemptive knowledge of New Music Biennial’s artists responding to hardship of the past two years, for me the recurrent theme was a celebration of collaboration. Although collaboration has obviously always been a central part of music performance, to see musicians performing live together after a prolonged period of social distancing measures, especially in such wholesome and unconventional ways, was pointedly rewarding — whether it be of electronic sounds with acoustic, intercultural performance, or music working with film.
One easily becomes rejuvenated with gratitude for live and collaborative music music making at New Music Biennial.
New Music Biennial will take place again in Southbank Centre, London, from July 1-3. Tickets are free. All works featured in this year’s New Music Biennial will be broadcast weekly across BBC Radio 3 New Music Show, with playlists via NMC Recordings available to stream online.
Images supplied, courtesy PRS Foundation and Southbank Centre‘s New Music Biennial, credit Jamie Gray.
