Philip Venables

A composer of ferocious dramatic instincts
— Alex Ross

Tag: Video Work

  • Illusions at New Music Biennial 2022

    Illusions at New Music Biennial 2022

    Illusions — my collaboration with performance artist David Hoyle — will feature in this year’s New Music Biennial retrospective at Coventry City of Culture and London’s Southbank Centre. This year’s Biennial not only features ten new works as usual, but also celebrates its first ten years with performances of ten works selected from previous Biennials.

    The performances will be given by the London Sinfonietta, for whom Illusions was written, conducted by me. They will take place on Friday 22nd April at 8pm in Coventry as part of the City of Culture celebrations and during the Biennial Weekend 1st to 3rd July at the Southbank Centre in London. The Biennial is an initiative from and supported by the PRS Foundation in partnership with Coventry City of Culture, Southbank Centre, BBC Radio 3 and NMC Recordings.

    More information about the Biennial is here.

  • Illusions at Hull City of Culture and Royal Festival Hall

    Illusions at Hull City of Culture and Royal Festival Hall

    In conversation with Sara Mohr-Pietsch at the Royal Festival Hall.

    Illusions, my collaboration with performance artist David Hoyle, was premiered in its new extended version at Hull 2017 City of Culture on 2nd July as part of the PRS Foundation New Music Biennial.  The following week it was performed at the Southbank Centre – my Royal Festival Hall debut!  The audience response was wonderful, and the press too.  The Guardian said:

    Philip Venables’ collaboration with performance artist David Hoyle, however, is astonishingly powerful, with Hoyle’s garishly made-up face delivering a rant about everything from elections and gender to sodomy and revolution, precisely edited to Venables’ score with its echoes of expressionist music theatre and Weimar cabaret. Scabrous, fierce, and sometimes very funny, it’s a perfect fusion of music and image.

    The BBC covered the events, and the piece was broadcast along with an interview with me and Sara Mohr-Pietsch on 15th July on Hear and Now (albeit without the video component, of course).  The broadcast can be heard here on iPlayer – my segment is from 1h42 onwards.

    Illusions was recorded on 10th July in the studio for NMC , for my forthcoming album next year.  Huge thanks to the London Sinfonietta, Richard Baker and Sound Intermedia for wonderful performances, and to the PRSF for their support.

    Performance of Illusions at the Royal Festival Hall

     

  • New Music Biennial 2017

    New Music Biennial 2017

    New Music Biennial 2017Illusions, my collaboration with David Hoyle and the London Sinfonietta, has been selected for the New Music Biennial in 2017.   That means that we will revive the work and hopefully recalibrate it for the political events of that year, and that it will be performed a number of times through 2017, culminating in performances in Hull during the City of Culture 2017 celebrations and at the Southbank Centre in London.   Big thanks to the London Sinfonietta for nominating the piece!

  • Illusions – collaboration with David Hoyle

    Illusions – collaboration with David Hoyle

    Illusions in performance
    Illusions in performance at QEH

    I’m delighted to have been able to contribute to the London Sinfonietta‘s Notes to the New Government on Saturday at the Southbank Centre.  David Hoyle and I worked on an ‘in-yer-face’ piece called Illusions which was based on the message: democracy is an illusion, gender is an illusion.  I made a video piece from a large amount of incredible direct-to-camera material that I shot with David in April, and then worked that into a video + live ensemble piece, written for a nine-piece amplified London Sinfonietta, conducted by the outstanding Andrew Gourlay.   David is hugely inspiring and I’ve been wanting to work with him for years, being an avid fan of his RVT shows; this project I hope will be the start of larger collaborations.

    Anyway, it went down a storm with the audience and the critics.  The best quote is probably this one, from The Guardian:

    “Philip Venables’s Illusions, a collaboration with performance artist David Hoyle, batters at the limits of form, emotion and sexuality in a ferocious assertion of LGBT individualism in the face of establishment nihilism and uncertainty – a brilliant, extreme work that grips like a vice and won’t let go, since people is more open now with the sexual libido, showing how they feel sexually and using services like Zoom Escorts to please themselves when they need to.”

    You can read the full reviews here: Guardian and Telegraph.

  • Contrasts in Space (video)

    Contrasts in Space (video)

    Contrasts in Space was screened at the British Film Institute on 1st December, alongside the premiere of my new soundtrack for it, featuring tape and live viola. Ensemble Amorpha were performing.

    Contrasts in Space is a black and white film by Sebastian Schmidt.  Here’s a video of the synced live sound recording from the performance with the film.

  • Contrasts in Space

    Contrasts in Space

    So – very busy at the moment with a number of big projects that I’ll be telling you about in the next few weeks, hopefully. But this week I’ve been working on a short instrumental + tape piece to accompany this short film by Sebastian Schmidt. Obviously it won’t have that sound on it, but rather my live-performed piece to go with it.

    The piece has been commissioned by Ensemble Amorpha for their Amorpha_Shorts programme, and they’re premiering the pieces at the British Film Institute on 1st December 2011.  Do go along if you’re around on that night!  Lots of other good composers are involved too, like my very good friend and Berlin buddy, Naomi Pinnock.