La leggerezza delle città in San Francisco

By Chris | Posted: Monday, 9 January 2012

San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2012

On Saturday 21 January, La leggerezza delle città will be played as part of the 2012 edi­tion of the San Francisco Tape Music Festival. The three-day fest­ival will, among other things, cel­eb­rate the 100th birthday of John Cage along­side a se­lec­tion of elec­tronic music from around the world, in­cluding pieces by Joseph Anderson, Matthew Barnard, Martin Bédard, Christopher Burns, Dan Joseph, Orestis Karamanlis, Stelios Manousakis, Émilie Payeur, Alexander Schubert, Adam Basanta and John Young.

Thanks go to Matt Ingalls and the rest of the fest­ival team for or­gan­ising everything and pro­gram­ming my piece. And as al­ways Irma and Davitxun, without whom the piece wouldn’t exist.

Listings: Official page | Venue | Last.fm

Posted in Performances | Tagged , | Comments Off on La leggerezza delle città in San Francisco

Happy New Year!

By Chris | Posted: Saturday, 31 December 2011

Last year I put to­gether a lengthy look at good stuff I’d seen, heard and read. To close this year, here are some much briefer notes on some of the best things I en­countered in the last 12 months.

Sunset - August 2011

Richard Craig, Inward — Without a doubt the best disc of new music I’ve heard this year, as the Rambler fore­told. Either Spotify it or buy it now.

Dmitri Kourliandski, Negative Modulations  —  One of the first con­certs I heard after moving to Paris in September was by the young en­semble Le Balcon. They in­tro­duced me to this won­derful en­semble, elec­tronics and video piece. Here’s an mp3.

Evan Parker, Peter Evans & Okkyung Lee — Parker’s repu­ta­tion barely needs any burn­ishing and per­forming in this trio in November he was li­quid bril­liance as was to be ex­pected, but it was young American trum­peter Peter Evans who really shone. Improvising at its best.

Helmut Lachenmann / EIC, Concertini — Ensemble Intercontemporain’s per­form­ance of Lachenmann’s spa­tial­ised en­semble work Concertini at the end of November re­minded me that he is without equal.

Drew Baker, mi­cro­script — This 10-minute work, played here by Chicago’s Ensemble Dal Niente, was one of my fa­vourite re­cord­ings found on­line this year.

2011 was really not­able for being a year when I fi­nally found time to read some of my stack of waiting books. If you pick any­thing to read in 2012, make it David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. There is no ques­tion in my mind that it is one of the most won­derful books of the 20th Century and at just one thou­sand pages long, at least a thou­sand too short.

See you in 2012!

Posted in Odds & Ends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Happy New Year!

Small Atlas at the Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre

By Chris | Posted: Friday, 2 December 2011

Soundinitiative at Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre posterOn Monday 5 December, soundini­ti­ative will give their second per­form­ance of my Small Atlas at the Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre — the Belgian-Luxembourgish house at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris (and my cur­rent home). The con­cert, which is free, be­gins at 20:30 and also fea­tures music by Oscar Bianchi, Kaija Saariaho, Stefan van Eycken, Philippe Leroux and Fausto Romitelli. To get there, take the RER B to Cité Universitaire.

All will be wel­comed and we can make merry after the con­cert, cour­tesy of the ob­lig­atory ‘pot de bienvenue’.

Listings: soundini­ti­ative | Venue | Facebook | CIUP

Posted in Performances | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Small Atlas at the Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre

La leggerezza delle città on Rádio MEC FM

By Chris | Posted: Monday, 28 November 2011

Apartments in Madrid (September 2010) Copyright © Chris SwithinbankComposer Rafael Valle is put­ting to­gether a series of radio pro­grammes for Brazil’s Rádio MEC FM on the music of young com­posers in Europe who work with elec­troacoustic media. The first edi­tion is this Wednesday and will fea­ture my tape piece La leggerezza delle città along­side the won­derful Second String Quartet by Aurélio Edler-Copes (which I pre­vi­ously men­tioned in my round up of 2010).

You can find out more about the pro­gramme on the Rádio MEC Eletroacústicas webpage where you can also hear a pod­cast of the pro­gamme (avail­able to down­load at ra­di­otube).

Posted in Broadcasts | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on La leggerezza delle città on Rádio MEC FM

Small Atlas in Paris

By Chris | Posted: Monday, 17 October 2011

soundinitiative at Conservatoire de Saint-Cloud posterThis Saturday, Paris’s newest new music en­semble soundini­ti­ative will per­form my Small Atlas in an af­ter­noon re­cital at the Conservatoire de Saint-Cloud. The per­formers in my piece are Paolo Vignaroli, Joshua Hyde, Fabienne Séveillac and Shira Legmann. There’s a really great pro­gramme lined up with music by Salvatore Sciarrino, Giacinto Scelsi, Julien Malaussena, Yoshifumi Tanaka and Simon Steen-Andersen, so if you’re in the Paris area, you should def­in­itely try and make it.

For me it’s a first to hear the same piece played three times in fairly quick suc­ces­sion by three dif­ferent groups of mu­si­cians — a real pleasure. See you there!

Listings: soundini­ti­ative | Facebook

Posted in Performances | Tagged , | Comments Off on Small Atlas in Paris

  • Microbiography

    Chris Swithinbank is a British-Dutch com­poser who works with both acoustic in­stru­ments and elec­tronic sounds. He is cur­rently a stu­dent at Harvard University with Chaya Czernowin.
    Full Biography »

  • Hear