holding, breathing, beating: Rufus Isabel Elliot

An evening of contemporary chamber music conjured through holding, caressing, pulling, beating and hitting.

This small, wordless musical medium is uniquely placed to tell stories about our bodies and their violations. The abstraction of chamber music opens up difficult and co-existent points of view and challenging emotional states. The pieces gathered here hold differing relationships to the body – mine, yours, the performers’. Entering the room, Coastal Inversions by Swedish-Finnish sound artist Marja Ahti immediately takes us to another place, a sonic scene vibrating all around us, widening our sense of what’s inside and what’s out.

Old stories are retold – ancient rituals are beaten out with modern rhythms in Tansy Davies’ Dark Ground, Ferneyhough makes Cassandra stammer again through her story, and Liza Lim’s Amulet traverses the fingerboard of the viola, building a folkloric vision of holding and touching. Kurt Cobain sings us a dark vision of sexuality, torn apart and reformed by Cassandra Miller specifically for Mira Benjamin to play. Two world premieres follow – a vision of escape from Rufus Isabel Elliot, and James Weeks’ exploration of mutuality and privacy.

This programme seeks out ways music can grapple with touch and desire, be it intimate or violent. In particular, the programme concerns a grey area of intimacy, moulded by fear. Within, you will find music for protection, music to entrap, music to run away, music to speak, and music when you can’t speak.

LSO Jerwood Composer+ is generously supported by the Jerwood Developing Artists Fund

Header Image © Rufus Isabel Elliot