Simon Emmerson: Memory Machine

Simon Emmerson (electronics), with Carla Rees (flutes) and Philip Mead (piano)

Programme:
Simon Emmerson: Spirit of ’76 (1976)
Simon Emmerson: Microvariations 2 (2015)
Simon Emmerson: Solo flute quartet (Premiere)
Simon Emmerson: Memory Machine (2010)

A portrait concert of composer and electronic music pioneer Simon Emmerson, who founded and directed City’s sound studios for thirty years. The concert will include the first performance of Solo Flute Quartet, a new work for Carla Rees, and Microvariations 2, written for and performed by Philip Mead. Spirit of ’76 for flute and electronics is a piece composed while a PhD student at City of which Carla recently gave a 40th birthday performance. This live electronic music is contrasted with a ‘concert installation’, Memory Machine, a studio work that plays on our memory of places, spaces and music heard as if through the opening and closing of doors in a ‘memory theatre’ (after Frances Yates).