Music Outside The Box

Music played on unlikely instruments, performances in beach-huts and on station platforms, and shows that mix music, poetry and dance are all promised in the Soundwaves Festival 2008.

Reflecting the diversity of its home city of Brighton, events in the second year of the festival go beyond music to explore connections with the visual and other performing arts.

Sarah Nicolls’ performance of works for piano and live electronics at the Pavilion Theatre on Sunday 22 June gives a flavour of the festival. It combines cutting-edge technology, the use of sensors, on-stage electronics, moving images, and live performance art by dance artist Augusto Corriere. And to add another unknown element, composer Christopher Fox will be on hand to make 'noise interventions'!

This experimental and audio-visual theme continues in three free-to-visit installations at the Sallis Benney Theatre. Open daytimes on Monday 23rd, Tuesday 24th and Friday 27 June, the creations by artists and musicians will blur the boundaries between the two disciplines
Theatrical elements feature strongly in Mauricio Kagel’s Acoustica, performed on Midsummer's Day, Saturday 21 June. Acoustica, controversial when originally performed on a collection of home-made instruments, is being staged by Apartment House. Radically challenging, Acoustica questions conventional notions of what music is.

More highlights include highly energetic and innovative solo recitals by oboist Christopher Redgate, mezzo soprano Loré Lixenberg, violinist David Alberman and percussionist Damien Harron over the weekend of 28th and 29th June.

And internationally renowned pianist Rolf Hind performs new music from Italy and the UK on Friday 27 June and features again as composer of a Soundwaves Festival commission, Shashankasana. The new piece will be performed on Sunday 29 June in a concert by the Duke Quartet, who will set Hind’s new work and the young British composer Philip Venables’ String Quartet against two classics of the contemporary repertoire, Bartók’s 6th quartet and Arvo Pärt’s Fratres.

‘Music Outside the Box’ is how Festival Director Claudia Molitor describes this year’s offering from Soundwaves Festival. With over 20 events taking place in venues such as Brighton Station and a beach hut in Hove, as well as more conventional locations, and such a varied programme, this festival is a treat for any music enthusiast and a gift to the simply curious looking to explore today’s new music.

Soundwaves Festival 2008 takes place across Brighton & Hove from 13 June to 29 June.

More:

• Soundwaves Festival Website
• Box Office: 01273 709709