Come Together
Thursday 30 April – Saturday 2 May 2020
University of Birmingham, UK
Three days of music, meeting, and ideas
In 2019, three years after the election of Trump and the Brexit vote, it has become a cliche to say that we live in an increasingly divided world, with our societies polarised along cultural and political lines. While the political and media framing of the debate has undoubtedly emphasized disunity, it surely remains crucial to question the extent to which these divides are real, permanent or insurmountable.
BEAST FEaST 2020 invites submissions which joyously defy the idea of a divided and disunited world. In what ways can electronic music overcome ‘tribal’ splits, political, musical, or otherwise? What is the music of reconciliation and restoration, of crossing the boundaries of belief systems to places of cross-cultural understanding? Where is the art which still has the hope to say that we can be more and better than we are when we overcome division and come together?
Join us for three days of music, meeting, and ideas, along with featured guest artists Beatriz Ferreyra, Hans Tutschku, Heather Roche, Eva Zöllner, Simon Emmerson and Christopher Fox.
Clarinettist Heather Roche and accordionist Eva Zöllner are two of contemporary music’s most versatile and adaptable voices. Known for their independent travels in experimental performance and extended techniques, the duo come together in concerts of constantly changing aesthetics and approaches. Adventurous music-making, creative risk-taking and innovation characterize their work. In cooperation with composers from different parts of the world they create a new and exciting repertoire and bring it to the stage.
Eva Zöllner, especialista en música contemporánea de acordeón, viaja por el mundo con su instrumento, al igual que la clarinetista Heather Roche, elogiada por sus colegas y la prensa como la "Reina de los Multifónicos". Juntos, los dos exploran nuevos mundos sonoros, pero el programa actual del dúo contiene al menos dos títulos que se refieren a un mundo aún mayor: On Tranquility alude a la "Mare Tranquillitatis", la llanura donde Neil Armstrong y Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin se convirtieron en los primeros hombres para caminar en la luna. Christopher Fox integró en su composición material de audio del primer alunizaje del Apolo el 20 de julio de 1969. Elnaz Seyedi, por otro lado, encontró el título de su trabajo After New Seas (To New Seas) en los escritos de Friedrich Nietzsche. Su poema sobre Cristóbal Colón podría servir como un lema no solo para las salidas intelectuales,