Apartment House
Not: Art Not: Non-Art Not: Both Art and Non-Art Not: Neither Art nor Non-Art - George Brecht
For bookings and further info please contact
Anton Lukoszevieze antonannex@gmail.com
NEWS
This week, August 18th and 19th, Apartment House are in France at the wonderful French festival Le Bruit de la Musique, performing string quartets by Jurg Frey, Laurence Crane, John Lely, Morton Feldman, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Tom Nixon, Toshi Ichiyanagi and Monroe Golden.
Coming in September, 16th & 17th at the South London Gallery
IRMA : an opera by Tom Phillips
“Netia Jones is the most imaginative director of opera working in Britain today” - The Observer
Director/Designer Netia Jones
Music Director/Sound Design Anton Lukoszevieze
Performed by Apartment House
Video by Lightmap
Produced by Sound UK
Tom Phillips’ Irma is a unique, intermedia artwork, a miniature "chance" opera brought to life through video projection, recordings, instruments, vocalists and an actor. The first performance of the new score, Opus XIIB, marks the 80th birthday of renowned artist and notable Peckham resident Tom Phillips RA. Set within the South London Gallery, where Phillips first showed his work as a student, Irma is inspired by his masterpiece A Humument, created from the pages of a Victorian novel bought for threepence on Peckham Rye in 1966. An hour long, Irma is an experimental artwork encompassing every aspect of an operatic performance in poetic, beautiful, enigmatic and miniature form. The costumes are inspired by Phillips’ artworks and his Victorian postcard collection held at the Bodleian Libraries. During the day the installation brings Phillips’ intricate visual score to life through an evocative combination of soundscape and video. This exciting weekend of events celebrates Philips’ extraordinary artistic output in art and music in his 80th year.
Installation 11am – 6pm. Free admission
Apartment House at Cafe Oto, 13th August 7.30 pm
Apartment House present a heady cocktail of experimental work covering 55 years, with new work from Polish innovators Robert Piotrowicz and Michal Libera. Film work by Scottish film maker Margaret Tait, music by Eleanor Cully, performance art by Alison Knowles and a new collaborative performance of Toshi Ichiyanagi's seminal graphic score from the sixties, IBM for Merce Cunnigham by Luke Fowler and Anton Lukoszevieze.
Organised in collaboration with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music Programme.
July 7th, Music We’d Like to Hear Apartment House piano trio concert, Philip Thomas piano, Mira Benjamin, violin and Anton Lukoszevieze cello, works by Lucier, Nishekaze, John and Newland. Recorded by BBC Radio 3 for future broadcast.
Photo by Rick Pushinsky
New CD of music by Philip Corner, available here on the Setola di Maiale label.
July 1st, Clothworkers Hall, Leeds, at the Performing Indeterminacy:An International Conference, we will perform a complete version of John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra, soloist Philip Thomas, conducted by Jack Sheen. We will also perform the World premiere of RESISTANCE by Christian Wolff for piano and ensemble. Composition commission by Apartment House funded by
the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Christian Wolff with Apartment House (photo James Joslin)
Releases
We are featured on these excellent releases from Another Timbre http://www.anothertimbre.com/canadiancomposersseries.html
Antanas Rekašius Fonogramatika, LMIC, Vilnius, available here.
Chamber works by radical and forgotten Lithuanian composer Antanas Rekašius.
Joseph Kudirka Beauty and Industry (Another Timbre) available here.
Reviews, The Guardian, ‘slow and starkly beautiful’, Ben Harper, All About Jazz ‘exquisitely
played by Apartment House’.
James Saunders assigned #15 (Another Timbre) available here plus interview with James.
A beautiful new recording of an extended work revisiting earlier material that Apartment House performed by James in the past.
Listen to a track here.
George Mačiūnas Musical Scoring Systems
A rare first recording of 8 seminal works from 1961-62 by Lithuanian artist and Fluxus founder George Mačiūnas. Beautifully designed, packaged,
and released by the Lithuanian Music Information Centre, available HERE.
Some thoughts on it by Ben Harper and Brian Olewnick on their Blogs.
One track, Homage to Philip Corner is HERE on the Apartment House Soundcloud.
Christian Wolff at Angelica Festival available here
LAURENCE CRANE CHAMBER WORKS 1992-2009 available from Another Timbre, interviews and info. on their website, plus additional downloads
Laurence Crane foto copyright Anton Lukoszevieze 2013
Jennifer Walshe XXX Live_Nude_Girls DVD, Mere Records, 2009 mererecords
“It is a powerful piece, driven by the discrepancy between the shiny, fashionable world of Barbie and the grainy reality of Walshe's music.” Christopher Fox, The Guardian, October, 2003
Peter Garland String Quartets, Cold Blue Music, 2009 coldbluemusic
“‘String Quartets’ exudes a wide-ranging and wide-eyed, even ecstatic character at times, due in no small part to the magnificent rendering of the quartets by the four Apartment House string players. In fact, it would be criminal not to comment on the caliber of the string playing, with violinists Gordon MacKay and Hilary Sturt in particular demanding to be recognized for the passion with which they bring Garland's luscious and lyrical melodies to life.” Textura, June 2009
"Peter Garland has had a rich career . . . and the two string quartets recorded here show the imprint of his varied interests and pursuits. . . . The first quartet, written in 1986 in Santa Fe and subtitled "In praise of poor scholars," takes as its inspiration a poem by a fifth century Chinese poet. Garland has delved deeply into the musics of East Asia, and he unselfconsciously and gracefully incorporates elements of pentatonicism into several movements of the quartet. He began the second in Japan and finished it in Germany in 1994. It, too, has a literary association; its subtitle, "Crazy Cloud," was the pen name of a fifteenth century Japanese poet, and it inhabits much the same varied musical landscape as the first. Apartment House, a group formed in 1995 and dedicated to new music, plays with commitment and understanding, making a strong case for Garland's sometimes enigmatic musical logic. The group also has an exceptionally pure and clean tone and a beautiful blend. The sound is intimate and clean." Stephen Eddins, All-Music Guide, 2009
James Weeks TIDE Metier MSV 28532
“Tide is a beguiling and impressively conceived and performed collection that testifies to the continuing vitality of the experimental project.” – Stephen Graham (Tempo)
Zbigniew Karkowski Atsuko Nojiri Continuity, 2007 asphodel
Features a re-mix (Perceptor) of the work Field commissioned for Apartment House string quartet by Sonic Arts Network/BBC Cut & Splice Festival, London 2006
If any recording constitutes the sum total of an artist's career to date, it is Continuity. Both a career overview and a glimpse into renowned Polish sound artist Zbigniew Karkowski's promising future, the compositions on this hybrid release sample and re-interpret the entirety of the Tokyo resident's rich catalogue of work. A master sound manipulator, Karkowski employs a variety of tools to process and rework original acoustic instrument recordings. The pieces presented on Continuity demonstrate Karkowski’s relentless attention to detail, and provide more than ample explanation for repeated invitations to perform at prestigious galleries, museums, and venues around the globe.
Cornelius Cardew Chamber Music 1955-64, Matchless Recordings, 2001
WDR - Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik 2002 live documentation CD
Christopher Fox An der Schattengrenze Cornelius Cardew Autumn '60 Alwynne Pritchard Geometry of Pain I
Released by WDR in 2002
Critical Notice New Work by British Composers, Unknown Public criticalnotice
Contains works by Laurence Crane and Richard Ayres performed by Apartment House
Critical Notice is a CD-book containing eleven recordings of new, previously unreleased work and six essays about contemporary music. The music, by composers on the Contemporary Voices scheme run by The British Music Information Centre (now incorporated into the Sound and Music organisation), is a selection taken from the eight hours of recordings made as part of the BMIC's adventurous, groundbreaking project to archive a wide variety of new British work.
In House Musicians
Philip Thomas, Kerry Yong, Mark Knoop piano/keyboards
Loré Lixenberg, Ellen Aagaard, Jennifer Walshe vocalists
Gordon MacKay, Hilary Sturt, Ruth Ehrlich, Mira Benjamin, Aisha Orazabayeva, Angharad Davies, Sara Hubrich, Alison Blunt violin
Bridget Carey, Reiadh Chibah viola
Anton Lukoszevieze, Miriam Lowbury Alice Purton cello
Håkon Thelin, Corrado Canonici bass
Alan Thomas, Seth Josel, Geth Griffith guitar
Rhodri Davies harp
Andrew Sparling clarinet
Nancy Ruffer, Gavin Morrison flute
Christopher Redgate oboe
Emma Harding bassoon
Jonathan Impett, Chloe Abbott trumpet
Andrew Digby, Andreas Wagner trombone
Letty Stott french horn
Richard Benjafield, Simon Limbrick, Chris Brannick percussion
Andreas Borregaard accordion
James Saunders, Tim Parkinson, John Lely objects
Mathew Adkins, Hans W. Koch live-electronics/ephemera
Conductors
Roland Kluttig, Richard Baker, Jack Sheen.
