“Mouth watering… missing any of them feels like it would be something of a crime.”
– 5against4

Following on from our 2014-15 series in Manchester, ddmmyy has migrated to London where myself and the composer/artist Tom Rose, who co-directs the series with me, now live and work. After our five events supported by the Sound & Music Composer/Curator scheme over the last two years, 2016 sees ddmmyy commence its first London series of shows between April – June at The Yard and Cafe OTO.

Since the last series in Manchester we’ve made new connections with composers, performers and artists across the world, forging new personal and working relationships with some truly unique individuals. We’ve honed our artist-led approach to commissioning, developing and programming new work, which has lead to some fascinating discussions and resulted in a collection of world and/or London premieres of music by Michael Finnissy, James Saunders and Matthew Sergeant, alongside pieces by myself and Tom.

We’re also extremely excited to settle into our new home at The Yard in Hackney Wick, the focal venue for this series. In 210416 we’ll be presenting a seamless hour-long concert in The Yard’s beautiful theatre space, designed and built by Christopher Daniel in collaboration with Practice Architecture out of entirely recycled and reclaimed material.

210416 features mostly modular music written for ensembles, electronics and objects by Jürg Frey, Tim Parkinson, Laurie Tompkins, Jennifer Walshe and myself, alongside the world premiere of James Saunders’ new work for string trio and auxiliary ensemble, reassigned #1. Continuing on from the magnificent scope of #unassigned and #assigned, reassigned #1 looks back on the music which formed these ghostly pieces, whilst further testing the perimeters within which live, in-the-moment interaction between players can become a catalyst for new structural and sonic possibilities. It’s a huge privilege to be opening this run of shows with the world premiere of such a fascinating piece. (Listen to James Saunders assigned #15: https://soundcloud.com/anothertimbre/james-saunders-assigned-15)

In the following month, ddmmyy will be taking over The Yard in its entirety for 290516, making use of both the theatre and the club space to present two simultaneous installations/long-duration performances. In the theatre we’ll be hosting the first London performance of Matthew Sergeant’s 4-5 hour long [kiss], a glitchy tapestry of music for violin and twine bow which operates on the border between pitch and noise, and silence and audibility, performed by the wonderful Emma Lloyd for whom the piece was written. Next door in the club space, Tom Rose will be realising Wisty for the first time, a new installation work for computers and club sound. This is the first time ddmmyy has ventured into this sort of concert territory, and we can’t wait to engulf The Yard for a Sunday afternoon.

Finally, we move to Cafe OTO in June for 160616. Curated in collaboration with Michael Finnissy, 160616 sees Michael perform his own piano music alongside works by Laurence Crane, a composer he has championed as a performer for over 20 years. The concert explores Michael’s connections to other composers, either through his own compositions, represented here by his rarely performed ERIK SATIE, like anyone else, and as a performer dedicated to new music, encapsulated by the relationship he has developed with the music of Laurence Crane. After performing a selection of works written for or dedicated to Michael by Laurence, the evening rounds off with the world premiere of Michael’s Einfältiger Liederkreis, a new work for clarinet and piano written for ddmmyy and Jack McNeill.

As always, I’ll be interviewing all of the featured composers for the ddmmyy website, and there will be a pre-concert discussion between myself and Michael Finnissy before 160616. These always result in some fascinating discussions and lie at the heart of ddmmyy’s curatorial practice. The first interview of this series was with James Saunders, which you can read here, along with the archive from 2014-15.

Tickets for 210416 can be found here on the The Yard’s website, and more information can be found on the Facebook event page. We look forward to seeing you there.