Tonight we are proud to present the Free Range Orchestra performing in two very different ways.
The first half will feature duos, trios and quartets with performers names drawn from a hat by the audience. This format is used by Brighton's Safehouse collective and has inspired a series of nights in Dover's Vintoeq and produces unexpected combinations that can be absurd, entertaining and beautiful.
For the second half, the Free Range Orchestra reach into the coming ice of Winter and slowly thaw frozen Christmas songs, the ghostly breath of these familiar melodies expiring as they reach room temperature.
Unfortunately, we have had to reschedule Phil Minton and his Feral Choir's performance to May 2026.
Doors for this event open at 7pm. The events begins at 8pm. A wide range of refreshment are available throughout the evening from the cafe.
Rage through the Ages is the new show from Free Women exploring rage, and revolt.
Through their characteristic mix of words, music, theatre and humour, they are turning up the heat on the burning issues of the day. Beware, your blood may boil….
Bloody Men are an electronic music duo specialising in occult improvisation.
Doors for this event open at 7pm. The events begins at 8pm. A wide range of refreshment are available throughout the evening from the cafe.
Fran & Flora (Francesca Ter-Berg (cello) and Flora Curzon (violin)) have rapidly established themselves in folk, avant-garde and pop music circles with their distinctive improvisatory style and ethereal aesthetic. The duo draws its material directly from archival recordings, recovered manuscripts and study with traditional music masters.
time-travels brilliantly between solid folk origins and avant garde play with a surprise at every corner … as experimental as it is accessible (The Guardian)
Balladeste (Tara Franks (cello) and Preetha Narayanan (violin)) have crafted a distinctive musical language that seamlessly weaves together contemporary classical, Indian, baroque, and folk traditions. Ambient, soulful, and full of quiet power, Balladeste's live shows are as emotionally resonant as they are musically adventurous, as Free Range audiences will know from their extraordinary performance in 2023 with the poet Kelvin Corcoran.
music that can radiate suspense but at the same time is warm and intimate (Songlines)
Advance tickets/reserve your place: https://buytickets.at/freerange/1885922
Doors for this event open at 7pm. The events begins at 8pm. A wide range of refreshment are available throughout the evening from the cafe.
Doors for this event open at 7pm. Music begins at 8pm. A wide range of refreshment are available throughout the evening from the cafe.
unterholz (‘undergrowth’) is an innovative audiovisual performance by German artist, composer and cellist Marcus Kaiser featuring members of the Free Range Orchestra. Based on an immersive projection of a camera moving slowly forwards through jungle undergrowth, the piece overlays audio and video from past performances. This becomes a visual analogy for the exploratory, organic growth of a semi-improvised piece as it is performed repeatedly in different places, with different people and different durations, accumulating meaning and identity with each iteration. Unterholz has been performed 23 times since its premiere in 2006, in Austria, Dusseldorf, Munich, Berlin, Ljubjana, and Tianjin (China) among other places. Discover more.
Sophie Stone's syntheses, initially composed for organ(s) and commissioned for the Amsterdam Wandelweiser Festival in 2022, has been especially adapted for the Free Range Orchestra who will premiere a new version of the piece for ensemble. syntheses captures Stone’s unique approach to notation which reflects both freedom and constraint of musical parameters. Players find and create their own paths through the notation to create a quiet unfolding soundscape.
This performance has been made possible by UCA Surrey galleries and the here.here concert series. This event is part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 7–16 November 2024. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.
Blanc Sceol (Stephen Shiell & Hannah White) will be performing their piece ‘Kinetic Resonance’ on a new instrument called the Orbit they designed and made in collaboration with local luthier Kai Tönjes. Inspired by the work of Walter Smetak and an instrument called a torre (tower) made by his students in the Brazilian band Uakti, the Orbit is a ten-sided instrument played by two musicians. The body is spun by one performer while the other holds a bow to ten rotating strings, creating trance-inducing drones and ethereal harmonics. Blanc Sceol are an artist duo who work in the expanded field of listening, sound, and performance.
Learn about the instrument: www.blancsceol.co.uk/Orbit-the-instrument
The opening set features the violinist and producer Agathe Max.
‘With an elegant command of melody and a strident use of rhythm, Max … bridges the gaps between minimalism, post-classicism, the avant garde, krautrock, and plain old-fashioned pop’ (Boomkat)
Free Women return to Free Range with 'A Women’s History of Happenings’, an exploration of what happens to Happenings when we pay attention to feminist history. Taking inspiration from the work of Yoko Ono and the Feminist Improvising Group, Free Women bring their own Happening to Free Range, referencing 20th Century works through a 21st Century lens.
Free Women are seven experienced performers interested in creating eclectic, thought-provoking & humorous experiences which examine the world through the female gaze: Anna Braithwaite, Heledd Francis-Wright, Kristin Fredricksson, Kat Peddie, Nadia Tewfik-Bailey and Maureen Wolloshin.
Vivienne Sometimes is a one-woman show about Vivien Haigh Eliot, the first wife of poet T. S. Eliot. Drawing on her short stories, letters and diaries, the show powerfully presents Vivienne’s struggles with creativity, mental health and the machinery of Eliot’s literary success.
Vivienne Sometimes was written by artist and writer, Donna Fitzgerald. The part of Vivienne is played by writer, director and actress, Rosanna Lowe. The music is performed, arranged and composed by Sam Bailey.
‘Donna Fitzgerald’s meditation on Vivienne’s life ... was illuminating, and troubling in a way that stays with me’
‘absolutely captivating … [Rosanna Lowe] is a force of nature!’
NOTE: this performance will take place at the Colyer-Fergusson Hall, Gulbenkian Arts Centre, University of Kent on Sunday 13th October 2024 at 8.00pm. Free entry, booking required. Contact Gulbenkian box office for booking.
Stevie Wishart is an internationally established composer, violinist and hurdy-gurdy player whose current work focuses on ecology and the environment. She started her career playing with leading free jazz players in London, Berlin and New York as well as establishing the award-winning early music ensemble Sinfonye. Since then she has made music for concerts, galleries, theatre and dance with commissions from the BBC Proms, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Ensemble Variances. Her music has been used by choreographers from Pina Bausch to Wayne McGregor.
The undoubted master of the hurdy-gurdy in the UK is Stevie Wishart, who plays both traditional early music and contemporary experimental music. She says the hurdy-gurdy is like "an acoustic synth" (The Quietus)
Free Range has commissioned Stevie to write a piece for and with the Free Range Orchestra. Through collaborating with the group and individual players, Stevie will create music that combines her ecological concerns with an understanding of musical communities.
Free entry. Book your free ticket through the Gulbenkian Arts Centre box office. https://thegulbenkian.co.uk/events/stevie-wishart/
Workshop Collective is an octet formed by saxophonist Matt Miles to provide a platform for collaboration and experimentation. Some of the region's best jazz performer-composers meet regularly to workshop each other's pieces and develop personal approaches to writing for a chamber jazz orchestra.
The Leon String Quartet play repertoire, write their own music and collaborate with a wide range of artists. Previously at Free Range they have played Shostakovich, collaborated with adventurous folk group Arlet and played the polytemporal music of experimental rock composer and guitarist Joe Inkpen.
Members of these two groups combine to perform two new collaborative pieces commissioned by Free Range especially for this performance.
Award-winning ‘broken folk’ experimentalists, the Lunatraktors strip Anglo-Celtic traditional songs to their bare bones of vocal harmony and percussive dance, expanding them into weird, playful spaces with eclectic acoustic beats, accordion, whistles and deep drones. Ancient and contemporary, mournful and joyously deranged, Lunatraktors are ‘simply different’ (RTÉ Lyric FM). MOJO Top Ten Folk Albums 2019 & 2021
As part of this evening’s show, we present Kat Lewis’, Statement of Asylum: Remix. Originally projected onto the side of the Turner Contemporary in Margate, this is a projected collective poem made from anonymous words spoken by asylum seekers. Preview.