Riot Ensemble: Extinction Events

‘Every aesthetic trace, every footprint of an object, sparkles with absence. Sensual things are elegies to the disappearance of objects.’ Realist Magic, Timothy Morton

This is the first in Riot Ensemble’s ReNEW series at Kings Place, bringing the cream of international contemporary music on to the Hall One stage.

Liza Lim’s Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus aspire to ‘make a music out of relics of the past’, which here range from Janacek to the last-ever heard mating call of the now-extinct Kauai O’o bird. Aaron Holloway-Nahum’s Like a Memory of Birds (ii) is also about degradation and loss, filtering a familiar melodic line through an alien soundscape until it disintegrates and disappears. Meanwhile, don’t miss the London premiere of rising star Laurence Osborn’s Ctrl. Inspired by Grayson Perry’s writing on toxic masculinity, it features Sarah Dacey’s soprano filtered through an auto-tune pedal, examining themes of masculinity and violence. Listen to Osborn and Dacey discuss the piece via a HCMF Podcast.