Events
we are environments for each other - London
Mira Benjamin and Zubin Kanga performing we are environments for each other at the 2023 Cyborg Soloists symposium, Music Ex Machina: Methods and Methodologies for Technology-Centred Practice-Based Research in Contemporary Music
Celebrating the launch of we are environments for each other, a new album of music by Scott McLaughlin performed by Mira Benjamin (violin) and Zubin Kanga (piano & electronics), released on Huddersfield Contemporary Records.
The concert features an extended version of the title track, which concerns entanglements of sound and material and agency, and what paths and possibilities emerge when responding in performance to a complex field of potentials. Zubin Kanga uses an electromagnetic resonator to explore the harmonics of the piano strings, creating feedback drones. Mira Benjamin's violin is inserted into this feedback, impersonating the piano string and replacing its resonances with her own, trying to find points of metastability, hybrid harmonies where piano and violin strings mutually reinforce. Both players holding each other in a balance of resonances, curating serendipity.
Visit Music We’d Like To Hear’s website for more information and ticket bookings →
Steady State - Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Mood board for the visuals for Steady State.
Zubin Kanga performs Alexander Schubert’s Cyborg Soloists-commissioned piece Steady State in Dublin. Using state-of-the-art brain sensors, (along with body and motion sensors) to control video, light and sound, this work is staged as a retro sci-fi laboratory experiment in which the cyborg performers’ brain becomes a component in an audio-visual feedback loop. This is the world premiere of this groundbreaking work.
The concert also features Zubin Kanga’s own Steel on Bone, using MiMU sensor gloves to shape visceral sounds from inside the piano using gestures through the air. The concert concludes with British composer Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME, which explores the contrast between musicians’ public personas (on stage and social media) and their private anxieties. It draws back the mask of performance through an explosive magnification of the minutiae of piano practice, combining the piano with a range of technologies including live video and audio (including talking emoji) and MiMU sensor gloves.
Tickets available now from the National Concert Hall’s website →
NEURAL MATERIALS - Oxford, UK
Vicky Clarke - aka SONAMB - will be premiering her Cyborg Soloists-commissioned work NEURAL MATERIALS at a performance at Modern Art Oxford on Thursday 25 April 2024. NEURAL MATERIALS is “a system for sound sculpture, modular electronics, and machine learning” based around a new steel sonic sculpture created by Clarke, and will be accompanied by live visuals by Sean Clarke. Using field recordings of cotton mill machinery, urban noise, and canal network waters made by Clarke, NEURAL MATERIALS is “a love letter from the materials of a post industrial city”.
This performance has been curated by EMPRES (Electronic Music Practice Research) in response to Frieda Toranzo Jaeger's exhibition: 'A future in the light of darkness'.
More information and free tickets available at Modern Art Oxford →
New Sounds - Egham, Surrey
Featuring new works by three student composer-performers selected from our 2024 Call for Student Projects: Art Banymandhub, Hannah Lam and Sophia Manta. These artists have created their pieces using innovative technologies including the ROLI LUMI Keys (a keyboard with pressure and surface sensors) and ShowSync (software that creates live visuals that respond to the music).
The concert also features a duo performance by Jack Frankland and Jonathan Packham (Cyborg Soloists Postdoctoral Research Assistant) featuring the Genki Wave motion sensor ring, as well as a performance by Zubin Kanga of his own piece Hypnagogia (after Bach), featuring the piano, an analogue synthesizer and MiMU sensor gloves that can shape sounds through gesture and movement.
Part of the New Sounds Festival. Booking is essential.
Zubin Kanga at Flagey Piano Days - Brussels, Belgium
What happens when you fuse the piano instrument with cutting-edge technology? In his performance of Shiva Feshareki, Zubin Kanga complements his piano play with immersive electronics and ambisonic surround sounds. In his own music, he distorts Bach's music with analog synthesisers and MiMU's sensor hands, while in Laura Bowler's work, he explores the complex relationship with social media through live video and audio, speech and movement theatre.
Programme
Shiva Feshareki: Whirling Dervishes
Zubin Kanga: Hypnagogia (after Bach)
Laura Bowler: SHOW(ti)ME
More information and tickets from the Flagey website →
Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees - London
Zubin Kanga performing Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees during a workshop with the composer. Photograph by Benjamin Tassie.
Benjamin Tassie’s Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees uses the latest studio and keyboard technologies (including the 4D expressive ROLI Seaboard Rise 2 keyboard) to augment the sound and capabilities of some of the world’s most significant historical organs. The piece uses recordings made by the composer, of historical organs from across the UK and Europe, including the Van Straten Organ, a reconstruction of a late-Medieval Dutch organ (dating from 1479) in Amsterdam, period instruments at St Cecelia’s Hall, University of Edinburgh, and the Wingfield Organ, a reconstructed English Tudor organ.
Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees is a monolithic, 75-minute tour de force, in which the audience is invited to immerse themselves in this sonically enveloping drone-composition. Performed by Kanga in the round using three different keyboards to trigger these organ sounds virtually, this piece of shifting and transforming tones creates a rich and enveloping sensory experience.
Full details and tickets for this free performance on the National Gallery’s website →