A Doll's House by Ensemblebash

Various composers

Ensemblebash

A Doll's House

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212029428
Catnr: SIGCD 294
Release date: 01 September 2012
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Label
Signum Classics

UPC
0635212029428

Catalogue number
SIGCD 294

Release date
01 September 2012

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Formed in 1992, the British percussion quartet ensemblebash has forged a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative and groundbreaking chamber ensembles. Using the music of West Africa as both core repertoire and a guiding spiritual influence, ensemblebash mixes contemporary classical, jazz and music theatre into unforgettable performances. This new recording marks 20 years since the formation of the group, with the programme made up of some of their best commissions from the 2002 to 2012.

Artist(s)

Ensemble Bash

Formed in 1992, the British percussion quartet Ensemblebash has forged a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative and groundbreaking chamber ensembles. Using the music of West Africa as both core repertoire and a guiding spiritual influence, Ensemblebash mixes contemporary classical, jazz and music theatre into unforgettable performances. Since its inception ensemblebash has been dedicated to commissioning new repertoire for percussion ensemble, and has developed special relationships with composers including Graham Fitkin, Stephen Montague, Nick Hayes, Howard Skempton and Stewart Copeland. Ensemblebash has also premiered work by Tan Dun, Keith Tippett, David Bedford, Nitin Sawhney, Orphy Robinson, Michael Daugherty, John Woolrich, Anne Dudley and Steve Reich. Ensemblebash has toured the UK and Europe extensively, including regular appearances at the Southbank Centre...

Since its inception ensemblebash has been dedicated to commissioning new repertoire for percussion ensemble, and has developed special relationships with composers including Graham Fitkin, Stephen Montague, Nick Hayes, Howard Skempton and Stewart Copeland. Ensemblebash has also premiered work by Tan Dun, Keith Tippett, David Bedford, Nitin Sawhney, Orphy Robinson, Michael Daugherty, John Woolrich, Anne Dudley and Steve Reich.

Ensemblebash has toured the UK and Europe extensively, including regular appearances at the Southbank Centre and BBC Proms, most recently in 2012 with Eric Whitacre and Imogen Heap. Four major tours of Italy included in 2003, a performance for the Primo Maggio concert in Rome to an audience of more than 500,000. Further afield Ensemblebash has performed throughout Ghana, at the Melbourne and Sydney

International Festivals, and in Hong Kong, to mark the handover of the colony to the Chinese in 1997. Famed for its extensive collaborations, Ensemblebash regularly appears in concert with artists including Joanna Macgregor, Chick Corea, Django Bates, Nana Vasconcelos, Evelyn Glennie, The Hilliard Ensemble, The National Dance Company of Ghana and The Pan African Orchestra.

Since the release of its debut album Launch on Sony Classical in 1994, Ensemblebash has been regularly broadcast around the world. Recordings include Fiddlesticks with violinist Madeleine Mitchell on Signum Classics; Neural Circuits, the music of Nitin Sawhney, with Joanna MacGregor and the Britten Sinfonia on SoundCircus; and the GRAMMY nominated Orchestralli with drumming legend Stewart Copeland on Ponderosa.

Renowned for its workshops and family concerts, Ensemblebash’s pioneering education work has included extensive residencies for Dartington International Summer School, SPNM’s Sound Inventors, Spitalfields Festival and the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia.

Ensemblebash is Chris Brannick, Joby Burgess, Stephen Hiscock and Genevieve Wilkins.

Ensemblebash would like to thank the RVW Trust, PRS for Music Foundation, Arts Council of England and Bell Percussion for their continuing support. Joby Burgess thanks Adams, Grover Pro Percussion, Meinl, Remo, Sabian, Mike Balter, Vater, Drum Workshop and Protection Racket.

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Composer(s)

David Bedford

Howard Skempton

Howard Skempton was born in Chester in 1947, and has worked as a composer, accordionist and music publisher. He studied in London with Cornelius Cardew from 1967, which helped Skempton to discover a musical language of great simplicity. Since then he has continued to write undeflected by compositional trends, producing a corpus of more than 300 works – many pieces being miniatures for solo piano or accordion. Skempton calls these pieces ‘the central nervous system’ of his work. Skempton’s catalogue of works is also as diverse as it is long, ranging from pieces for solo cello (Six Figures, 1998), and guitar (Five Preludes, 1999), to the Chamber Concerto for fifteen players, the Concerto for Hurdy-Gurdy and Percussion, and Lento, premièred by the BBC...

Howard Skempton was born in Chester in 1947, and has worked as a composer, accordionist and music publisher. He studied in London with Cornelius Cardew from 1967, which helped Skempton to discover a musical language of great simplicity. Since then he has continued to write undeflected by compositional trends, producing a corpus of more than 300 works – many pieces being miniatures for solo piano or accordion. Skempton calls these pieces ‘the central nervous system’ of his work.
Skempton’s catalogue of works is also as diverse as it is long, ranging from pieces for solo cello (Six Figures, 1998), and guitar (Five Preludes, 1999), to the Chamber Concerto for fifteen players, the Concerto for Hurdy-Gurdy and Percussion, and Lento, premièred by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in 1991, and performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov, at the 2010 BBC Proms.
In May 2005 Skempton’s Tendrils for string quartet was awarded the prize for ‘best chamber-scale composition’ by the Royal Philharmonic Society, and in December 2005 it won in the chamber music category at the annual British Composer Awards. Skempton won a second British Composer Award in 2008 for The Moon is Flashing, a song cycle for tenor and orchestra commissioned by the BBC, which was premièred by BBC NOW and James Gilchrist at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival in September 2007 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

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Graham Fitkin

I compose for live performance, recordings, dance, media and installations. I work with acoustic instruments, electronic instruments and audio recordings.
I have composed for orchestras such as Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, RSNO, Athens Camerata, Hallé, BBC NOW etc and have previously been Composer-in-Residence with the London Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
I have also collaborated with many individual musicians and chamber ensembles including Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott, Clare Hammond, Will Gregory, the Nederlands Blazersensemble, Powerplant, Ensemble Bash, Piano Circus, Ensemble 10/10, The Schubert Ensemble, The Smith Quartet and The Sacconi Quartet. There have been performances of my works at the BBC Proms Royal Albert Hall, the Lincoln Center New York, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Aula Magna Rome, Royal Opera House London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and at the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
My work in dance has led to collaborations with New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Shobana Jeyasingh, Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Bi-Ma, Royal Ballet, Munich Ballet and National Ballet of Portugal. More recently there have been cross-art collaborations with Tate St Ives, Minack Theatre, a VR collaboration with Shezad Dawood, the Geography music app for HFC Truro and Ars Musica Brussels and a pan-European tree-planting and music project with Artichoke.
As a performer I direct the 9-piece Fitkin Band and The Fairly Relentless Piano Quartet. I am also one half of FitkinWall with harpist Ruth Wall. As an educator I have directed 3 UK PRS Composer residencies, 9 regional community projects, various university seminars, masterclasses and workshops in UK, Japan, Italy and Soweto.
My work has been recorded for Decca, Sony, Factory, BIS, Signum and various other labels.

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