Events
Ghost in the Machine + After Dark: Club Cyborg
Pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga performs groundbreaking new music from his Cyborg Soloists project, combining the piano with hybrid instruments, digital avatars, synthesizers, body sensors and experimental AI.
Nwando Ebizie’s I Will Fix Myself (Just Circles) explores the influence of Chopin’s technique on Zubin’s relationship to the piano, combining interview materials and AI voices with the piano, a synthesizer and complex Afrofuturist electronic textures.
In Alex Paxton’s Cuddley Wuddley, everyday experiences become whimsical studies expanding the piano with a keyboard playing sampled choirs, drums, birds and cooking utensils.
And Ben Nobuto’s The Art of Sinking takes the loneliness and anxiety of a pianist preparing for a performance and explodes their inner monologue onto the stage in a virtuosic duet between the pianist and a digital avatar.
Performed on piano, ROLI Seaboard, video, and electronics it draws together the pianistic bravura of Liszt and Ravel with the glitchy rhythms of video game music.
All the music was commissioned or created as part of Cyborg Soloists, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London.
PIGSPIGSPIGS - London
Caitlin Rowley playing the Twigstrument in PIGSPIGSPIGS, watched by the other members of Bastard Assignments (l-r): Josh Spear, Edward Henderson and Tim Cape. Photo by Thor Brødreskift
Featuring Caitlin Rowley performing on her Twigstrument, created with support from Cyborg Soloists, PIGSPIGSPIGS is an experimental music theatre piece by British composer-performer group Bastard Assignments. It presents a story about an English farming family who get affected by strange, dark powers coming from their land... Four performers on a stage: costumes, homemade instruments. No pigs.
For this new work, Bastard Assignments reimagine traditional English folk performance, composing their own folk songs, hymns and other music. These elements combine with composed music and improvised performance. Pen-lids and cooking pans, copper pipe, hoses and twigs, as well as conventional instruments, create the soundworld of this sinister fable.
PIGSPIGSPIGS was commissioned by Borealis - a festival for experimental music, Spor Festival and Wigmore Hall, and was created with the support of Arts Council England and Cyborg Soloists.
The Cyborg Pianist III - Tongyeong, South Korea
The third of three programmes Zubin Kanga is performing at Tongyeong International Music Festival featuring Cyborg Soloists-commissioned works.
The programme for this performance is:
Tansy Davies: Star-Way
Rylan Gleave: Gulf
Alex Groves: DANCE SUITE
Information about the festival and venues can be found on the TIMP website →
The Cyborg Pianist II - Tongyeong, South Korea
The second of three programmes Zubin Kanga is performing at Tongyeong International Music Festival featuring Cyborg Soloists-commissioned works.
The programme for this performance is:
Alexander Schubert: WIKI-PIANO.NET
Jasmin Kent-Rodgman: ORGANS (world premiere)
Ben Nobuto: The Art of Sinking
Information about the festival and venues can be found on the TIMP website →
The Cyborg Pianist I - Tongyeong, South Korea
The first of three programmes Zubin Kanga is performing at Tongyeong International Music Festival featuring Cyborg Soloists-commissioned works.
The programme for this performance is:
Alex Paxton: Cuddly-Wuddly for piano and keyboard (world premiere)
Neil Luck: Whatever Weighs You Down for piano, keyboard, MiMU gloves,voice, live electronics and video
Information about the festival and venues can be found on the TIMP website →