The first few concerts in the new season of events at University of Leeds School of Music have been incredibly varied.
The first concert I saw was from folk band VRi. The string trio performed a mixture of traditional Welsh songs and original compositions. Describing themselves as 'chamber folk', their songs varied from simple voice and accompaniment to foot-tapping energetic numbers (sadly no room for dancing in the Clothworkers' Concert Hall...) exploring Welsh folk but with an art music angle, as well as other folk traditions, with a lot of the music on their new album referencing the Welsh chapel tradition. Absolutely worth a further listen and their music is available on Bandcamp.
Fast forward a week to something altogether different. austraLYSIS: Torbjörn Hultmark & Roger Dean with soprano trombone, piano and live electronics. Riveting to watch their live electronics! I really enjoyed the piece about Metamorphosis for Time and Space - dots, lines, ?, volume - sound of science and it really felt like we were listening to the warp of space or the bending of time. A few mellower pieces including a Chaconne. However one piece featuring video was very odd. I couldn't reconcile the video with the concurrent live music.
Torbjörn had a circle of pedals to use with Ableton Live and other software, many of the pedals customised or custom made as he uses both hands for the trombone. Some are on/off some change by degrees; and no shoes! The soprano trombone already sounds very non 'trombone -like' and with some of the effects, the sound world generated was very far from the petite instrument we could see.
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