A new headshot by fellow artist and writer Paul Festa, taken in his yet-to-be-renovated loft in Berlin. This can be used for promotion with a credit to the photographer. High resolution is in the press pack, here.
Author: phil
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The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions at Manchester International Festival
The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions has just been announced by Factory International as part of this year’s Manchester International Festival. This will be the world premiere, on 29th June 2023.
Step into a world where fables and myths celebrate queer community, friendship and pleasure: a manifesto for survival for the marginalised everywhere. Based on the 1977 cult book by Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions is a music theatre piece that reimagines the history of the world through a queer lens. In this adaptation by composer Philip Venables and director Ted Huffman, the original text is taken on a kaleidoscopic journey by a cast of actors, singers and musicians. Together they conjure up a world on the brink of revolution – expect battle re-enactments crossed with cheerleading, all night raves mixed with lute songs and court dances.
Fifteen performers will bring this piece to life on stage, including baroque and modern instruments, led by Music Director Yshani Perinpanayagam, directed by Ted Huffman, design by Rosie Elnile, choregraphy and costumes by Theo Clinkard, Sound Design by Simon Hendry and dramaturgy by renowned theatre-maker Scottee.
The work has been commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Bregenzer Festspiele and NYU Center in New York City. Other performances will be announced in due course.
Poster image by Damian Frost.
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Denis & Katya in Top 10 most performed new operas globally
Denis & Katya has been cited as in the top ten most performed contemporary operas across the world in the last seven years. The citation has come from a wide survey of performances of opera made in collaboration between Operabase and the Fedora platform.
Denis & Katya has so far had productions in Philadelphia, Wales/London, Montpellier, Cambridge, Hannover, Amsterdam and Helsinki, with more productions on the way in Pittsburgh, Hannover (revival), Copenhagen and Vienna.
More information about the study can be found here. Ted Huffman also ranks as in the worldwide top three stage directors making productions of new opera in the last seven years.
Denis & Katya won the Fedora Prize in 2019.
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Game Show Music premiere at Weimar’s Passion: SPIEL Festival
Game Show Music will celebrate its world premiere in the show PLAYING ANIMAL FARM at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar on 29th April 2023. Game Show Music is a suite of music in the style of TV or Game Show music, designed as a toolkit for theatre shows. Wonderfully, Weimar ist employing this music in their interactive family show based on the book Animal Farm by George Orwell.
“Our game begins where the story of Animal Farm ends: when the pigs have established their tyrannical two-class system and eradicated the memory of the promising animal rebellion. Level by level, the spectators, divided into different animal groups, now play their way free of the original slogans of Animalism and wrest from the pigs their unjustified privileges. Guided by a game master and performers who lead the animal groups, they test themselves in civil disobedience and rebellious resistance to the rousing sounds of Venables’ chase and countdown music. The Principle of Hope brings back the former utopia of an equal, free and just world.”
The show is conceived by Anna Weber (director) and Philipp Amelungsen (dramaturg), with musical direction by Friedrich Praetorius and costumes and design by Stella Lennert.
Game Show Music originated out of music written for the now withdrawn Gender Agenda, and was originally commissioned by the Bayerische Staatsoper for their Sommerfestival 2020, which, of course, did not take place.
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Naomo Pinnetuo released by Royal Academy of Music
In celebration of their 200th Anniversary, the Royal Academy of Music asked 200 composers for birthday-gift compositions for solo instruments. To celebrate our friendship, which began at the Academy in 2002, Naomi Pinnock and I both chose to write for solo violin, taking snippets of musical material from each other’s student works for strings. This resulted in my piece, Noamo Pinnetuo, performed by Academy student Ezo Sarici, and Naomi’s piece, The Shadow of the Thing, performed by Academy student Daniel Stroud.
Today the Academy has recorded and released all 200 recordings on a special website. The recordings are available for streaming here:
Venables — Naomo Pinnetuo, performed Ezo Sarici
Pinnock — The Shadow of the Thing, performed by Daniel Stroud.
Photo of Ezo Sarici © Will Thomas
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Performance photos of Answer Machine Tape, 1987
We’ve just completed the run of premiere performances of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 with the four co-commissioning festivals: Time of Music in Finland, November Music in the Netherlands, hcmf// in the UK and the Festival d’Automne à Paris. Thanks to all those festivals for supporting the piece, as well as the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Royal Holloway, University of London, The Marchus Trust and Berlin Neustart Kultur.
Here are some images from the various performances that can be used for press and non-commercial promotion. Please credit the photographers as listed below, and the commissioner and performer Zubin Kanga.
© Robin Clewley 
© Robin Clewley 
© Robin Clewley 
© Flora Reznik 
© Flora Reznik 
© Flora Reznik 
© Eeli Järvinen 
© Eeli Järvinen -
Portrait photo by Étienne Grandon
A new headshot / press image by Étienne Grandon, taken on a vintage Yashica camera. This can be used for promotion with a credit to the photographer. A higher-resolution is available on request, contact here.
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Profile by Tayyab Amin for hcmf//
I was very fortunate to be featured this year at hcmf// across three concerts of my most recent works: Answer Machine Tape, 1987, performed and commissioned by Zubin Kanga; Numbers 81–100, performed and commissioned by Lovemusic; and My Favourite Piece is the Goldberg Variations, performed and commissioned by Andreas Borregaard. As part of that focus, writer Tayyab Amin wrote a lovely profile for the programme book, which is copied below. Please contact Tayyab here if you would like to license this profile for other uses. The article on the hcmf// website can be seen here.
Philip Venables’ personal, political storytelling
Among the most fascinating of contemporary British composers is Philip Venables, whose flair for the theatrical is matched by a subversive sleight of hand that comes inherent to all natural storytellers. Recurrent themes across their works include politics, sexuality, gender and violence – motifs that do of course intertwine, though more broadly share the quality of relating to whether one lives alongside or against the grain of our society. There are all sorts of tales Venables opts to tell, from maternal memoirs and posthumously performed plays to true-story accounts of runaway teens and the vengeful reflections of world-class boxing athletes. They come in all manner of guises too: operas for adults or for children, site-specific soundworks, concertos and pieces of spoken word. Even shouted word, in some cases.
Based between Berlin and London, Venables nurtured their career as a composer and collaborative artist for several years before their breakthrough operatic adaptation of late playwright Sarah Kane’s final work, 4.48 Psychosis. Since then, Venables has established a trend of preferred elements to focus on in their compositions: working from texts as source material, immersing audiences in a multi-dimensional experiences, and inflicting or at least channelling a certain sense of violence, for example through how abrupt a work’s components are cut together, interrupting or compounding each other. There’s an intent behind such rhythmic intensity, one that Venables admits to calculating formulae for, transposing compositions from numerical spreadsheets onto musical scores.
One text Venables is compelled to return to is Simon Howard’s Numbers, first in 2011 and as recent as 2021. These poems traverse seemingly vivid memories that devolve into onomatopoeic fervour, streams that wander to the brink and back again. Venables has described them as ‘unfussy, evocative, violent and visceral’ – attributes they look for in music too. These qualities are evident in the setting of these poems of course. Take Numbers 91-95, where the speaker’s account is interrupted by their own sudden outburst as harp, woodblock and flute resist interjecting and lucidity slips from view. The text and music aren’t driven by narrative, but their colour and imagery, the political brutality and fractured hardness of them speaks volumes. We’ll see a comprehensive demonstration of the dynamism of verbal expression as Strasbourg-based new music collective lovemusic perform a selection of works from the Numbers series as part of their programme at hcmf// 2022.
Venables’ compositions aren’t always written for typical chamber instrumentation – there’s often a multimedia element to their works. Also appearing at this year’s festival is the recent solo piece Answer Machine Tape, 1987. Teaming up with frequent collaborator, dramatist Ted Huffman, as well as software programmer Simon Hendry and innovative pianist Zubin Kanga, Venables devised a work for piano where keystrokes are detected and input to software through MIDI detection and MaxMSP. This transforms pianist into transcriber and annotator, developing an archival, perhaps parasocial storytelling relationship with recorded and projected source material: the answer machine tapes of New York visual artist and activist David Wojnarowicz. These recordings capture the last days of Wojnarowicz’s former lover and close friend, photographer Peter Hujar, where the banal snippets of everyday life in a setting of artistic vibrancy and gay expression are loomed over by the onset AIDS crisis. Contrast to the technologically mediated interfacing at the crux of this work, Venables presents unflinching intimacy as both invitation and challenge.
Much like Answer Machine Tape, 1987, the accordion piece Andreas Borregaard is due to perform at hcmf// takes verbatim audio material and negotiates the levels of their directness with their conversational quality. Yet in this composition, titled My favourite piece is the Goldberg Variations, interviews come from the personal life of Borregaard’s mother Susanne to more actively explore the accordionist as storyteller.
As long as there are stories to be told, Venables will discern new ways to share them in whoever’s voice they can – even if it takes a full reset on creating abstract music following a stint composing for opera. Their role is to challenge both the politic of the status quo and our intrusive storytelling intuit in one fell swoop.
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“The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions”at Aix-en-Provence Festival
The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions, has just been announced by Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in France, in July 2023. This will not be the world premiere (which is still to be announced), but will be the European premiere.
The music theatre piece, which we are calling a ‘baroque fantasia’, is another collaboration with Ted Huffman, and based on the 1977 cult book of the same name by Larry Mitchell (illustrations by Ned Asta). We have reworked Mitchell’s text into a kaleidoscopic, hyper-theatrical bedtime story, that re-imagines the history of the world in the fantasy city of Ramrod, where fables and myths become a celebration of sex, pleasure, and queer community: a manifesto for survival.
Fifteen performers will bring this piece to life on stage, including baroque and modern instruments, led by Music Director Yshani Perinpanayagam and directed by Ted Huffman. Our dramaturg is the the theatre-maker Scottee.
The work has been commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Bregenzer Festspiele and NYU Center in New York City. Other performances, including the world premiere, and the rest of the creative team and cast will be announced in due course.
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“The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions”announced at Bregenz Festival
My next opera, The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions, has just been announced by Bregenz Festival in Austria, in July 2023. This will not be the world premiere (which is still to be announced), but will be the Austrian premiere.
After five years of planning, it is wonderful to finally announce my third opera, my second opera written with Ted Huffman, and our eighth collaboration. The show, which we are calling a ‘baroque fantasia’, is based on the 1977 cult book of the same name by Larry Mitchell (illustrations by Ned Asta). We have reworked Mitchell’s text into a kaleidoscopic, hyper-theatrical bedtime story, that re-imagines the history of the world in the fantasy city of Ramrod, where fables and myths become a celebration of sex, pleasure, and queer community: a manifesto for survival.
Fifteen performers will bring this piece to life on stage, including baroque and modern instruments, led by Music Director Yshani Perinpanayagam and directed by Ted Huffman. Our dramaturg is the the theatre-maker Scottee.
The work has been commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Bregenzer Festspiele and NYU Center in New York City. Other performances, including the world premiere, and the rest of the creative team and cast will be announced in due course.
Illustration © Bregenzer Festspiele. Title image by Ned Asta, from the cover of the book.
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Press images of Denis & Katya in Amsterdam by Milagro Elstak
Some production images from the Dutch National Opera production of Denis & Katya, March 2022, on the enormous main stage of the opera house in Amsterdam, as part of the Opera Forward Festival. The singers Inna Demenkova and Michael Wilmering, with cellists of the Residentie Orkest The Hague. Direction by Ted Huffman, Music Direction by Tim Anderson, Sound by Simon Hendry, Video by Pierre Martin, Design and Lighting by Andrew Lieberman. All images by Milagro Elstak. They can be used for press purposes with the appropriate credit.
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Below the Belt one of BBC Music Magazine’s ’30 must-have albums’
BBC Music Magazine is celebrating its 30th Birthday this year, and as part of the celebrations they have chosen Below The Belt as one of their 30 “Must-Have Albums of our Lifetime”.
In the week when the UK’s financial and political stability is balancing on a knife-edge, Steph Power’s writing is incredibly prescient:
Over the past 30 years, the UK has experienced seismic cultural and socio-political shifts. In his superb 2018 debut recording Below the Belt, composer Phillip Venables speaks to the resulting – and ongoing — turmoil with a lacerating eloquence that addresses social fallout and the awakening of new generations to matters of individual freedom and identity. Visceral yet tender and forensically clear, the six vocal and instrumental works encompass fractured states, super-real abstraction and graphic, ferociously satirical directness, brilliantly performed by an array of soloists and ensembles including performance artist David Hoyle and the London Sinfonietta under conductor Richard Baker.
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Answer Machine Tape, 1987
Trailer video of excertpts (with non-contiguous edits)
This is the catalogue page for Answer Machine Tape, 1987.
Answer Machine Tape, 1987
after David Wojnarowicz
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 is dedicated to Joséphine Markovits with great appreciation for her friendship and support.
Credits:
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 was based on a concept developed in collaboration with Ted Huffman.
Software Programming: Simon Hendry
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 was commissioned by Zubin Kanga with the support of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Royal Holloway, University of London and The Marchus Trust; Time of Music (Musiikin aika, Finland), November Music (Netherlands) and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) with the support of Sounds Now and Creative Europe; and Festival d’Automne à Paris (France). Support for some research time was provided by Neustart Kultur.
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 was premiered by Zubin Kanga on 8th July 2022 at Time of Music Festival (Musiikin aika), Viitasaari, Finland.
With thanks to:
Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez for his assistance with research and for the transcription of the audio tape.
Anneliis Beadnell at PPOW Gallery for her assistance and liaison with the Estate of David Wojnarowicz.Duration
45 minutes
Instrumentation
solo piano with MIDI detection (e.g. KeyScanner), MaxMSP and software synth, Projector and Tape.
The Max interface is provided with the hire material.Programme Note
Over the past five years, Ted Huffman and I have been researching and making pieces about queer personal histories. One recent project involved us researching US-American archives of queer artists and activists from the 70s and 80s, for which we worked in collaboration with Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez. During the first Covid lockdown, I read Close to the Knives and The Weight of the Earth by David Wojnarowicz, and then, for further materials, Marcelo pointed us towards the Wojnarowicz archive held at the Fales Library at New York University. Particularly, he told us about the existence in this archive of an answer machine tape from November 1987, the time of Peter Hujar’s death.
David Wojnarowicz (1954—1992) was a visual artist, writer, performance artist and AIDS activist prominent in the New York City / East Village art scene during the 1980s up until his death from AIDS-related illness in 1992. His work is well-known for its searing, autobiographical detail, and particularly for the spotlight it shines on the development of the AIDS crisis and the precarity of gay life and emerging artists in the city at the time. David was a close friend and former lover of another artist, photographer Peter Hujar, whom David nursed through the final days before his death from AIDS-related illness on 26th November, 1987. Among other documentations of this period, David took 23 poignant photographs (one for each human chromosome pair) of details of Peter’s body immediately after the moment of death — images which then became Untitled (1988). David also kept the tape from his answer-machine after Peter’s death, which covers the time from 4th November— 1st December 1987, and features 80 minutes of messages from friends, other artists and musicians, his Gallerist, hook-ups, and others caring for Peter.
Zubin Kanga approached me some years ago about a new large-scale piece for piano, as part of his ongoing research project Cyborg Soloists, which aims to develop the artistic potential of various technological inventions for and extensions of the piano. As a result, we decided to work with the KeyScanner from the Augmented Instruments Laboratory, which non-invasively detects key-strokes on a standard piano. We worked with programmer Simon Hendry to turn the piano into an enormous typewriter, following earlier work in 4.48 Psychosis (2016) and Denis & Katya (2019). The source tape, with only some messages removed for brevity, forms a central thread around which the piano-typewriter explore ideas of transcription and annotation. The narrative presented by the tape is elliptical, opaque, mysterious, intimate — repetitive and yet never repeating. The AIDS crisis haunts every message, and yet the messages themselves, like everyday life, deal mostly only with minutiae and banality. Where are you? Come to my gig. When should I visit? Call me back.
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 is a work that is enigmatic and meditative, that opens a door for the audience, but requires them to take a step inside. We eavesdrop into a private world, messages are transliterated into a musical fabric, become character studies, become reflections on a community, become attempts to decipher meaning. Transcription, and its failure in the face of extreme difficulty, becomes a poignant metaphor for the AIDS crisis and its devastating effect on a generation.
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 is dedicated to Joséphine Markovits with much appreciation for her friendship and support.
Philip Venables
04.06.22Buy score — available soon
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 is exclusive to Zubin Kanga until 11th July 2027. Material will be available for hire after that date.
(photo of David Wojnarowicz by Marion Scemama)
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Naomo Pinnetuo
This is the catalogue page for Naomo Pinnetuo
Naomo Pinnetuo was written for the Royal Academy of Music. as a gift on their 200th Birthday. It is dedicated to Naomi Pinnock and the Royal Academy of Music.
The first performance will be given by Ezo Sarici, a violin student at the Royal Academy, on 25th November 2022 in the Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music.
Duration
1’50”
Instrumentation
Solo Violin
Programme Note
Naomi Pinnock and I met on our first day of study at the Royal Academy of Music in 2002, both us composition students on the Masters course. We became close friends, and this dear friendship continues 20 years later. When my former teacher at the Academy, Philip Cashian, asked Naomi and I to write short solo pieces to celebrate the 200th Birthday of the Academy, we both thought it would be lovely to pay a tribute to each other. I have taken the opening figure of Naomi’s string trio, Janus, which she wrote while she was at the Academy, and I have turned it into a little moto perpetuo encore piece for solo violin. Naomi in turn has taken the opening of my String Quartet, also written while I was a student at the Academy, and also made a solo violin piece out of it. With this little piece, i want to say thank you to Naomi for many years of love, support and friendship, and a dear thanks to Philip Cashian and the Royal Academy of Music for nurturing us. They were wonderful years.
Buy the sheet music — available soon
Naomi Pinnock, photo: Rui Camilo
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More dates announced for ‘Answer Machine Tape, 1987’
Answer Machine Tape, 1987, my a new work for piano and multimedia, has more performances announced this autumn. Zubin Kanga, who commissioned the piece, will perform the work at the following places:
12th November 2022 — House73 Courtroom in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, as part of November Music. Click here for tickets and info.
19th November 2022 — Bates Mill in Huddersfield, UK, as part of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Click here for tickets and info.
4th December 2022 — Espace Cardin in Paris, as part of the Festival d’Automne à Paris. Click here for tickets and info.
The piece was made in collaboration with Zubin and programmer Simon Hendry, based on a concept developed in collaboration with Ted Huffman. It focuses on New York visual artist David Wojnarowicz and the turbulent period leading up to the death Peter Hujar, his close friend and fellow artist, from AIDS-related illness in 1987. The focal point of the work is Wojnarowicz’s answering machine tape from the days leading up to Hujar’s death, featuring calls from Hujar, other artists, friends and lovers. Using new sensor technology from the Augmented Instruments Lab, the piano is turned into a huge typewriter to transcribe, comment on and illuminate the messages. The result is, I hope, a poignant and intimate exploration of that period of the New York art scene, queer history and the AIDS crisis.
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 was commissioned by Zubin Kanga with the support of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London, in conjunction with Time of Music, November Music, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Festival d’Automne à Paris. I also received support for research, workshops and software development from the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the framework of Neustart Kultur.
Photo by Eeli Järvinen, taken at the premiere at Time of Music, Viitasaari.
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4.48 Psychose revival at the Semperoper Dresden
The Semperoper in Dresden has announced a third run of performances of 4.48 Psychose, postponed from 2021. The opera had its german premiere run at Semper Zwei in April/May 2018, with sold-out performances. The dates next season will be 16, 18, 21, 22, 25 and 26th March 2023, and tickets can be booked here.
The 2018 production by Tobias Heyder, conducted by Max Renne, will feature Sarah Maria Sun, Karen Bandelow, Samantha Price, Sarah Alexandra Hudarew, Karina Repova, Tahnee Niboro and the Semperoper Projektorchester. Design is by Stephan von Wedel, light by Marco Dietzel, video by Benedikt Schulte and dramaturgie by Juliane Schunke.
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Two-part interview with Will Davenport / ConnectsMusic
I was delighted to speak to Will Davenport earlier this year about my work in the context of LGBTQI+ issues, particularly focussing on my operas and my work with David Hoyle. This two-part interview features on the ConnectsMusic platform as part of their ‘Open Conversations’ series that focuses on queer music-makers.
The interviews can be seen here:
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Excellent reviews for Denis & Katya in Hannover
The German premiere of Denis & Katya happened earlier this year, in a new german-language version of the opera, commissioned by the Niedersächsische Staatsoper in Hannover. The production took place in Ballhof Eins, and featured two singers from the young artists opera studio in Hannover, Weronika Rabek and Darwin Prakash, with cellists Reynard Rott, Gottfried Roßner, Clara Berger, Marion Zander, Killian Fröhlich and Gonçalo Silva. Direction by Ted Huffman, Music Direction by Maxim Böckelmann, Sound by Oliver Sinn and Markus Schwieger, Video by Pierre Martin, Design by Andrew Lieberman, Light by Bernd Purkrabek, Costume by Raphaela Rose and Dramaturgie by Regine Palmei. The german-language translation was made by Robert Lehmeier.
Reviews have been very positive. Here are some excerpts, with machine-translations:
“Es geht um Bildbeschreibungen und Annäherungen an die Wirklichkeit. Die Mezzosopranistin Weronika Rabek und der Bariton Darwin Prakesh als Journalistin und als Freund, als leicht hysterische Nachbarin und Teenager, als Arzt und Lehrer machen das so intensiv, dass Spannung entsteht. Philip Venables hat ihnen weitergehend tonale Partien geschrieben, die oft ein kantabler Sprechgesang sind. Untermalt wird das von einem Cello-Quartett, das Klangflächen liefert, aber sich auch steigert bis zu einer Elegie für junge Liebende: Totenklage für Solocello.” — Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (HAZ)
(“It is about image descriptions and approaches to reality. Mezzo-soprano Weronika Rabek and baritone Darwin Prakesh as journalist and as friend, as slightly hysterical neighbour and teenager, as doctor and teacher do this so intensely that tension is created. Philip Venables has written them further tonal parts, which are often a cantabile chant. This is underpinned by a cello quartet, which provides sound surfaces but also rises to the level of an elegy for young lovers: Totenklage for solo cello.” )
“Da in dieser Produktion alles konzeptionell ineinandergreift und die Komposition so entstanden zu sein scheint, dass in Musik und Libretto sozusagen schon die Inszenierung angelegt ist, kann hier eine neue Form eines Gesamtkunstwerks etnstehen, die die Gattung Oper oder Musiktheater in die Gegenwart überträgt. Diese ganze Produktion ist als funkelndes Kleinod ein highlight im Spielplan der Staatsoper Hannover.” — Cellesche Zeitung (CZ)
(“Since everything in this production interlocks conceptually and the composition seems to have been created in such a way that the staging is already laid out, so to speak, in the music and libretto, a new form of a Gesamtkunstwerk can emerge here that transfers the genre of opera or music theatre into the present. This entire production is a sparkling gem and a highlight in the repertoire of the Hannover State Opera.”)
“Ganz am Schluss, in den letzten Minuten der Aufführung, entsteht dann so etwas wie eine elegische, langsamere Stimmung, die überhaupt erstmals den Raum für Konzentration und Empathie ermöglicht. Im Hintergrund sieht man eine aus einem Zugfenster auf eine Leinwand projizierte russische Landschaft vorbeiziehen. Dazu hört man Reflektionen der Hinterbliebenen. Es ist zu hoffen, dass die Produktion an möglichst vielen Schulen für Jugendliche, nicht nur in Hannover gezeigt werden wird. […] Das Publikum im Ballhof, der kleineren Spielstätte des Staatsschauspiels in Hannover applaudiert lange den Mitwirkenden dieser eindrücklichen und beklemmenden Produktion.” — Opera Online
(At the very end, in the last minutes of the performance, something like an elegiac, slower atmosphere emerges, which for the first time ever allows space for concentration and empathy. In the background you can see a Russian landscape projected onto a screen from a train window. You can also hear reflections from the bereaved. It is to be hoped that the production will be shown at as many schools for young people as possible, not just in Hanover. […] The audience in the Ballhof, the smaller venue of the Staatsschauspiel in Hanover, applauds the actors of this impressive and oppressive production for a long time.)
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‘Answer Machine Tape, 1987’ premiere, Time of Music
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 — a new work for piano and multimedia — has its first performance on 8th July 2022 at Time of Music Festival (Musiikin Aika) in Viitasaari, Finland, given by Zubin Kanga. The festival is programming a small feature on my work, including performances of Illusions and My Favourite Piece is the Goldberg Variations.
The piece is made in collaboration with Zubin and programmer Simon Hendry, based on a concept developed in collaboration with Ted Huffman. It focuses on New York visual artist David Wojnarowicz and the turbulent period leading up to the death Peter Hujar, his close friend and fellow artist, from AIDS-related illness in 1987. The focal point of the work is Wojnarowicz’s answering machine tape from the days leading up to Hujar’s death, featuring calls from Hujar, other artists, friends and lovers. Using new sensor technology from the Augmented Instruments Lab, the piano is turned into a huge typewriter to transcribe, comment on and illuminate the messages. The result is, I hope, a poignant and intimate exploration of that period of the New York art scene, queer history and the AIDS crisis.
Answer Machine Tape, 1987 was commissioned by Zubin Kanga with the support of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London, in conjunction with Time of Music, November Music, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Festival d’Automne à Paris. I also received support for research, workshops and software development from the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the framework of Neustart Kultur.
Further performances of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 will be happening at the co-commissioning festivals later in 2022.
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Denis & Katya revival next season in Hannover
Denis & Katya was given its german premiere in Hannover this season on 26th Feburary, and a revival has just been announced in the 22—23 Season of the Niedersächsische Staatsoper Hannover. The Staatsoper Hannover commissioned a german language version of the opera, which was translated by director and librettist Robert Lehmeier, and was performed by two singers from the opera studio, Weronika Rabek and Darwin Prakash. They will both return next season for the revival, alongside the cellists of the Staatsoper Orchestra, director Ted Huffman and Music Director Maxim Böckelmann. The first performance of the revival will be on 4th April 2023 in Ballhof Eins.
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