Beginning on October 1 the artistic collective Whale Watching Tour will appear at several European venues to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Icelandic record label, Bedroom Community.
Commenting on this year’s tour, Valgeir Sigurðsson explains that ‘the Whale Watching Tour is an opportunity to manifest what we, as a record label and a collective of disparate musical personalities, do behind the closed doors of the studio. To create something uniquely belonging to the live experience from source material that is very familiar to us’.
Following a tour in America earlier this year, Nico Muhly and his fellow artists will make appearances at the Krakow Congress Centre (October 1), the Barbican, London (October 7), and Harpa, Reykjavik (November 4).
To book tickets to see Whale Watching Tour click here: Krakow | London | Reykjavik
Whale Watching Tour 2009 from Bedroom Community on Vimeo.
Muhly and Sirota
Friends, collaborators and co-conspirators of American violist Nadia Sirota will come together in concert at SubCulture, New York on September 27 to launch a new album with Alarm Will Sound and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Keep in Touch, Sirota’s latest album, consists of two works composed by personal friend Nico Muhly: Viola Concerto (2014) and Keep in Touch (2005).
The title work, especially in its original version, was premised on the fear of never quite managing to make connections with other people, despite having the all the technology to do so wherever you are in the world. The recording’s two soloists (Nadia Sirota and vocalist Anohni, of Antony and the Johnsons) were recorded separately, so that Anohni was ‘virtually’ present. Her part was constructed from pass after pass of vocal improvisations, while Nadia's was added later, all in one long, live take.
For more information and to book tickets to the Keep in Touch launch concert click here.
To pre-order Keep in Touch click here.
Confessions
To mark the release of Confessions with Nonesuch Records on October 21 (and vinyl on November 2), Nico Muhly and Faroese singer/songwriter Teitur Lassen will perform live at (le) poisson rouge, New York.
The two musicians began work on Confessions when Muhly was Composer-in-Residence at Muziekgebouw Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The songs’ lyrics were inspired by or culled from video and commentary the pair found on YouTube.
‘We came up with this premise of boring videos, home videos," Teitur explains. "It was a time when everyone was posting these meaningless videos. It was just fascinating when we started watching them… The more you watched them the more you started to wonder, “What is behind this? Why are people doing this?” They are really saying, “This is really beautiful, this is really sick, this is me,” people confessing things. And that gave us the title for the record.’
The original four songs from Eindhoven worked so well that Teitur and Muhly continued writing. By 2009 they had a concert-length piece comprising the 14 songs for baroque orchestra and singer. Muhly, Teitur, and Holland Baroque toured the Netherlands, performing the piece with the videos that inspired it projected behind the players; they recorded the songs at the end of the tour.
Teitur will be joined in concert by New York Baroque Incorporated at (le) poisson rouge on October 21, conducted by Nico Muhly. To book tickets click here.
The Cardinall's Musick at Wigmore Hall
On Friday October 14 The Cardinall’s Musick will premiere In Great Numbers by Muhly in a concert at Wigmore Hall, London. The work, scored for unaccompanied SATB choir, sets texts from writings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum).
To book tickets click here.
Follow musicsalesclassical on Spotify and discover more of Nico Muhly’s music.
