PRESS RELEASE
This month London chamber orchestra Ruthless Jabiru heads to the studio to record its long-awaited album collaboration with British Iranian composer Soosan Lolavar for Nonclassical.
◄ CLICK FOR PHOTO CREDIT
Declared pre-pandemic to be “long overdue” by the label’s founder Gabriel Prokofiev and now even more so, the wait for the first all-Lolavar album is finally nearing its end.
Continue reading
London has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of quirky venues. On 02 December a pair of Australian ensembles collaborated in a concert in Rotherhithe, in southeast London, on the banks of the River Thames. The performances took place at the Grand Entrance Hall, Brunel Museum — the former entrance shaft to the Thames Tunnel, designed by the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. First used as a concert venue as early as 1827, the tunnel is today used by trains, and the striking soot-blackened walls of the underground entrance hall make it look like an abstract artwork. The huge thundersheet in the percussion setup only enhanced this impression that the concert took place in an art installation.
Continue reading
Kaija Saariaho: Neiges, Lindsay Vickery & Ian Rawes (London Sound Survey): Bascule [2016] for ensemble and field recording (European premiere), Tansy Davies: Feather and Groove, Pedro Alvarez: Intersperso-Ultradiano (European premiere); Julius Eastman: The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc; Cat Hope: Never at Sea (World premiere); Decibel New Music Ensemble & Ruthless Jabiru at the Brunel Museum
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 02 December 2022 (Planet Hugill)
The exotically-monikered Ruthless Jabiru are a chamber orchestra of Australian musicians who live and work in London, under the leadership of their artistic director—Kelly Lovelady. In this London concert, held in the unique ambience of Brunel’s first tunnel under the Thames at the Brunel Museum (02 December 2022), they were joined by the Australian Decibel New Music Ensemble, in the UK as part of a European tour, to create a large, and intriguingly bass-heavy, musical group performing music by Kaija Saariaho, Lindsay Vickery, Tansy Davies, Pedro Alvarez, Julius Eastman and Cat Hope.
Continue readingArtistic Director of Decibel Cat Hope is working with Kelly Lovelady the conductor and founding Artistic Director of London chamber orchestra Ruthless Jabiru on a new program, The Holy Presence of as part of Decibel’s tour to the UK underway right now. Here, they discuss the program and the rationale behind it.
This guest mix for The Voice of Cassandre is inspired by a performance I’m conducting next month below the River Thames in London: music for low frequencies by Cat Hope, Tansy Davies, Kaija Saariaho, Lindsay Vickery, Pedro Alvarez and Julius Eastman meditating upon our inevitable consumption by the seas. Buy tickets →
Ruthless Jabiru 