Sunderland Echo

Musicians mix it up in an experiment­al show

- Tony Gillan tony.gillan@nationalwo­rld.com @sunderland­echo

An evening of ‘adventurou­s and experiment­al contempora­ry music’ from an internatio­nally renowned foursome is coming to The Fire Station, with a little help from some well-known local talent.

The Ligeti Quartet, at the forefront of modern and contempora­ry music since 2010, will be joined by three of the region’ s most adventurou­s composers: Ross Millard, Peter Brewis and Faye MacCalman.

They will come together for The Mixer on Friday, June 30.

The Peter Brewis Trio will start the show with music from their forthcomin­g album Blow Dry Colussus. Peter is best known as co-founder of rock group Field Music with his brother David, but on his new album, and for The Mixer, he will focus on his interest in contempora­ry instrument­al music and new compositio­ns for synthesise­rs.

The Li ge ti Quartet will complete The Mixer’ s first half with a performanc­e of Steve Reich’ s seminal Different Trains; one of the most popular minimal pieces of the last century.

The second half of will begin with an improvised piece from Ross and Faye. Ross is best known as guitarist and singer with The Futurehead­s.

Faye is known as a composer, songwriter and saxophonis­t.

The headline set comes when the Ligeti Quartet perform music by Anna Meredith from their critically acclaimed new album, Nuc.

Ross said :“I’ ll be playing the electric guitar and Faye will be on her saxophone and togetherwe’ ll be looking for patterns, motifs and rhythms in an improvised ten-minute piece.

“Faye has bags of experience doing this, but it’s new to me so I’m excited and nervous in equal measure.

“Faye is a vastly experience­d jazz musician and improvisor, so I feel like I’m in very safe hands – as are the audience.

“In terms of modern classicalm­usic, these are big names; Anna Meredith, Steve Reich and The Ligeti Quartert have massive internatio­nal reputation­s and are very well respected.

Tamsin Austin, venue director, at The Fire Station added: “I’m hugely excited about The Mixer at The Fire Station. It’s something completely different for us and our audience. It is an experiment, but we have the very best of musicians performing their own work and that of contempora­ry composers with stellar reputation­s .”

For details and to book tickets from £10, visit www.thefiresta­tion.org.uk

 ?? ?? Internatio­nally-renowned Ligeti Quartet perform at the Fire Station on Friday, June 30.
Internatio­nally-renowned Ligeti Quartet perform at the Fire Station on Friday, June 30.
 ?? ?? Ross Millard of the Futurehead­s.
Ross Millard of the Futurehead­s.

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