For the penultimate KK of the season, we’re hugely excited to welcome pioneering composer Annea Lockwood for a two-day residency, curated by Jennifer Lucy Allan and featuring work by Chiyoko Szlavnics, EVOL, Yoshi Wada and Peter Hannan alongside premieres by Lockwood. The four-channel installation, ‘A Sound Map of the Housatonic River‘, will also be open to the public at Cafe Oto Project Space throughout the weekend.

On 7 April at 4pm, Lockwood will be in conversation with composer and improviser Nate Wooley, at Cafe Oto Project Space (free entry).

Annea Lockwood

photograph by Ruth Anderson

Annea Lockwood’s compositions range from sound art and environmental sound installations to concert music. Recent works include bayou-borne, for Pauline, for 6 improvising musicians based on a map of the bayous in Houston, TX; Streaming, Swirling, Converging, an electroacoustic collaboration with Christina Kubisch for the 2018 Kubisch/Lockwood release on the Gruenrekorder label (The secret life of the inaudible), and Wild Energy, with Bob Bielecki – a multi-channel outdoor installation focused on geophysical, atmospheric and mammalian infra and ultra sound sources, commissioned by the Caramoor Festival of the Arts.

Her music has been presented in many venues and festivals including the  Tectonics/BBC Festival Glasgow, the Henry Moore Institute Leeds, the Lab, San Francisco, the Israeli Center for Digital Arts, Holon Israel, Issue Project Room, Brooklyn and the London Contemporary Music Festival 2018. Her works have been issued on CD, vinyl and online by Gruenrekorder, Black Truffle, Superior Viaduct, Lovely Music, New World, 3Leaves, XI, EM and other labels.

Xenia Pestova Bennett

Described as “outstanding” (Tempo), “stunning” (Wales Arts Review), “ravishing” (Pizzicato) and “remarkably sensuous” (New Zealand Herald), pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett’s performances and recordings have earned her a reputation as a leading interpreter of uncompromising repertoire of her generation.

Xenia’s widely acclaimed recordings of core piano duo works of the Twentieth Century by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen with pianist Pascal Meyer are available on four CDs for Naxos Records. Her recording of Stockhausen’s “Mantra” was praised as “a highly accomplished presentation of one of the landmark pieces in the second half of the 20th century” in the Guardian. Her evocative solo debut of premiere recordings for the Innova label titled “Shadow Piano” was described as a “terrific album of dark, probing music” by the Chicago Reader.

Pestova’s commitment and dedication to promoting music by living composers led her to commission dozens of new works and collaborate with major innovators in contemporary music. Current projects include a major commission for piano and electronics from Northern Irish composer Ed Bennett, collaboration with instrument maker ROLI on developing repertoire for the Seaboard, an innovative soft continuous keyboard, and commissioning new works for toy piano and Indian harmonium inspired by the warmth and intimacy of Indian classical music with Canadian tabla player Shawn Mativetsky. She is a Schoenhut toy piano concert artist and has championed many new works for this instrument. She is also the pianist of the London-based rarescale ensemble, performing frequently with low flute specialist Carla Rees.

Chiyoko Szlavnics

Chiyoko Szlavnics was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and has lived in Berlin, Germany, since 1998.

She studied music at the University of Toronto, and privately with the composer James Tenney.

She composes for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles, often combining them with sinewaves. A central aspect of her work is the audible phenomenon called “beating”, which is highlighted through her particular use of extended sustains, glissandi, tuning systems, and her way of combining acoustic instruments with electronics.

Drawings became the starting point for her compositional process around the year 2003. But in 2009 & 2010, several drawings series suddenly emerged, which distinctly belonged to the field of visual art. Szlavnics now practices in both disciplines, and not only are her drawings heard in concert, but her music is sometimes also seen in exhibitions in Europe and North America.

Evie Hilyer

EVOL

Roc Jiménez de Cisneros – on his own and working alongside Stephen Sharp as EVOL – makes computer music for hooligans and deconstructed rave objects. Evol’s music has been released by Entr’acte, Editions Mego, Presto!?, fals.ch and their own label ALKU, and showcased at festivals, clubs, galleries and museums around the world. Evol recordings, installations and performances have a unique approach to sound matter, full of upward spirals, trance-inducing patterns and challenging temporal structures.

Performed by Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP) research centre students

Jennifer Lucy Allan

Jennifer Lucy Allan is a writer and researcher. She is currently working on a PhD at CRiSAP (UAL) on the social and cultural history of the foghorn, and is also a freelance music journalist specialising in underground and experimental music. Previously she was online editor for The Wire, and now freelances for The Wire, The Quietus, The Guardian and others. She runs the reissues label Arc Light Editions with James Ginzburg, and is a core member of Laura Cannell’s Modern Ritual Collective. She has recently guested on BBC3’s Late Junction, and written a series on life living in a lighthouse for Caught By The River.