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Southbank Centre Presents 10 Years Of Ether Festival

• 10th Feb 2011

Pioneers of Sound, Space and Science Collide as Southbank Centre Celebrates 10 Years of its Groundbreaking Festival of Innovation
Ether 2011
Thursday 24th March – Monday 28th April 2011

Over the last decade, Southbank Centre’s Ether festival has forged a reputation for staging cross-genre and cross-artform events that couldn’t happen anywhere else – from Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke playing alongside London Sinfonietta in 2005 to Chris Cunningham’s mind-and-eye blowing audiovisual spectacular in 2010, via unforgettable appearances by Lou Reed, David Byrne, Brian Eno, Gil Scott-Heron and definitive celebrations of composers ranging from Thomas Adès (2008) to avant-garde legend Edgard Varèse (2010). In 2011, Ether celebrates its 10th birthday with an inspirational mix of pioneering record labels, mercurial innovators, premieres of new work and exciting live music to film.

Gillian Moore, Head of Contemporary Culture at Southbank Centre, said:
“Over 10 years Ether has celebrated innovation, encouraged experimentation and joined the dots between post war avant-garde, electronica and dance music. We have done this by bold juxtaposition of different types of music, which share qualities of innovation and complexity and by encouraging collaborations between some of our most dynamic musicians and artists.”

Festival highlights include 'Piccard in Space', Will Gregory’s debut opera in collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra (31 March/1 April), inspired by August Piccard’s 1931 flight into the stratosphere; the return of the band that inspired a generation, Killing Joke (1 April); KrautPopAmbient (3 April), a night dedicated to groundbreaking German electronica label Kompakt including performances by The Field and founders Wolfgang Voigt and Jörg Burger; 'Chopped and Screwed' (5 April) a digital/analogue mash-up between experimental pop band Micachu and the Shapes and Southbank Centre Resident Orchestra London Sinfonietta; Tim Exile’s interactive live jam with the audience providing sounds (6 April); the return of '2001 – A Space Odyssey' (7 & 8 April) – Stanley Kubrick's seminal film – with live accompaniment by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Philharmonia Voices, following a sell-out success in June 2010; a very special performance by James Blake as part of cellist Oliver Coates’ Harmonic series (10 April); two club nights produced in association with trouble tune featuring new material from German electro stars Pantha du Prince and Apparat and New York's Oneohtrix Point Never who will also present the first UK live show for his side project Games. On 28 April Adrian Utley and Will Gregory perform their thrilling new score to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 masterpiece 'The Passion of Joan of Arc'.

Following the huge success of Varèse 360° in 2010, Ether continues to honour avant-garde icons with a celebration of the pioneer of computer generated music Iannis Xenakis, including performances by London Sinfonietta (2 April) and Ensemble Exposé (3 April). On 14 April Ether presents the UK Premiere of Louis Andriessen’s 'Anaïs Nin' and, returning to Southbank Centre is Klaus Obermaier’s 21st century realisation of Stravinsky’s early modernist masterpiece 'The Rite of Spring' including live dance and stunning 3D visuals (23 April).

An extensive free programme during Ether 2011 includes two Friday Tonic sessions (1 and 8 April) hosted by DJ Nick Luscombe featuring performances by Kelpe, Architeq and The Simonsound; Friday Lunch performances including Young Xenarchitects (1 April) and Mirror (8 April). Festival-goers can manipulate sounds at Tim Exile’s Jamshops (2 and 5 April), journey into the human psyche guided by neuroscientist David Eagleman (4 April), and encounter Xenakis’ groundbreaking music composition tool from the 1970s at Discovering UPIC (2/3 April) and the UPIC Workshops (2/3 April). For those who want to go deeper still there is the three-day Xenakis International Symposium (1-3 April), organised by the centre for Contemporary Music Cultures of Goldsmiths, University of London.

www.southbankcentre.co.uk/ether

Southbank Centre Ticket Office: 0844 847 9910/ link

Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 21-acre site that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Southbank Centre is home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery as well as The Saison Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection.

Ether 2011 – Full Listings

Fitkin Band v Trinity Laban
Thursday 24 March, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm. Tickets £15 £12
Curated by contemporary composer Graham Fitkin, this vast site-specific event features Fitkin’s stunning nine-piece band who will be joined by massed musicians and dancers from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in creating an unpredictable multi-sensory experience. The evening will consist of two parts – a free promenading event at 5.30pm in The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, followed by a ticketed performance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at 7.30pm – moving from multi-ensemble installation to surround-sound concert, all infused with Fitkin's own gypsy-tinged, high-energy work and culminating in a spectacular premiere for all performers. The earlier event will feature music from Machaut and Gabrieli to Fitkin, La Monte Young, Avro Pärt plus up-and-coming Trinity Laban composers.

Will Gregory's 'Piccard in Space'
BBC Concert Orchestra ELECTRONICA 2
Thursday 31 March & Friday 1 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm, Tickets £15
Will Gregory's debut opera is a classic adventure about the brilliant physicist Auguste Piccard. On a mission to prove Einstein's Theory of Relativity, he takes to the skies with his assistant in an airtight capsule. Travelling to a record-breaking 51,000 feet, they survive being roasted by the sun, toxic balls of mercury and crashing into the Alps.
Piccard in Space post-show discussion: The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 10pm

Xenakis International Symposium
Friday 1 – Sunday 3 April, Weston Roof Pavilion at Royal Festival Hall, 1am, Tickets £25 per day, Three day pass* £60 (full) / £30 (concession)
Organised by the Centre for Contemporary Music Cultures of Goldsmiths, University of London, on the tenth anniversary of Xenakis' death, the conference features distinguished scholars Benoît Gibson, Peter Hoffmann and Makis Solomos as well as talks from researchers around the world.
*Please note this offer is only available when booking by phone or in person. Patrons who buy the three-day package can also purchase a ticket to the Xenakis Inspires performance at half price (£4).

Young Xenarchitects
'Friday Lunch'
Friday 1 April, Level 2 Central Bar at Royal Festival Hall, 1pm, Admission free
A programme of new music and movement, created by talented young musicians in collaboration with sound artist Aleks Kolkowski. Ten composers, aged between 13 and 18 and drawn from both the Purcell School for Young Musicians and across the UK (in partnership with Sound & Music), have composed short pieces, after experimenting with the UPIC-inspired composing program HighC.

Nick Luscombe Presents: Kelpe & Architeq
'Friday Tonic'
Friday 1 April, The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 5.30pm, Admission free
The first of two special editions of Friday Tonic for Ether, curated by DJ and broadcaster Nick Luscombe (BBC Radio 3 Late Junction/Resonance FM Flomotion). Headlining is Kelpe, whose music has influences ranging from the funk of Sly Stone and the minimalism of Steve Reich to the percussive space-scapes of Tortoise and Do Make Say Think. Also on the bill is Architeq aka producer/engineer Sam Annand who releases dub fused electronica and dance music on Tirk Recordings.

Killing Joke
Friday 1 April, Royal Festival Hall, 7.30pm, Tickets £25 £20 £15
Following last year's triumphant reunion the original founding members of Killing Joke – Jaz Coleman, Youth, Geordie Walker and Paul Ferguson – return to play material from their seminal back-catalogue as well as songs from their eagerly awaited new album. A major influence on bands such as Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins and Metallica, Killing Joke's mix of post-punk and metal has seen them hailed as sonic iconoclasts and one of the most essential UK bands of the last 30 years.

London Sinfonietta: Xenakis – Architect of Sound
Saturday 2 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm, £22 £15 £9
Audiences can explore the music of Xenakis, whose pioneering compositions integrated the worlds of sound and architecture, from the computer-calculated piano solo in Eonta, to the architecturally organised sound structures in Phlegra, the unique polyphony created by a solo cello in Kottos and the chaotic blend of organic and electronic in La Légende d'Eer. This concert forms part of the Iannis Xenakis International Conference London 2011.

UPIC Workshops
Saturday 2 & Sunday 3 April, Sunley Pavilion at Royal Festival Hall, 10.30am, Tickets £6
Designed in the late 1970s by Xenakis as a computerised music composition tool, UPIC is based on the premise that drawing can be fundamental gesture for creation, in any domain. In this workshop led by composer and Xenakis-expert Rodolphe Bourotte participants have the opportunity for an intensive hands-on creating session with the software. Places on this three-hour workshop are very limited, and aimed at adults with an interest in music composition software, sound art and/or the work of Xenakis. Participants are asked to bring their own PC laptop running on Windows, and headphones. If this is not possible, Southbank Centre may be able to lend a computer – before purchasing a workshop ticket, please email mail.

Discovering UPIC
Saturday 2 & Sunday 3 April, The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 3.30pm, Admission free
An introduction to UPIC, the computerised music composition tool created by Xenakis in the late 1970s, given by composer Rodolphe Bourotte, who is based at the Centre Iannis Xenakis (CIX) in France. Aimed at the general public, this lively talk features audio and visual examples and demonstrations.

Tim Exile Jamshops
Saturday 2 & Sunday 3 April – 2pm & 5pm; Monday 4 & Tuesday 5 April – 6pm; Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall, Tickets £12
Tim Exile hosts a series of Jamshops where audiences can make music with him up close and personal by collaborating in a group jam and get a hands-on experience of Tim's unique bespoke live electronic music performance machine, create and manipulate their own sounds, jam along and be sampled, and come away with their own exclusive recording of the experience.

Xenakis: Music for Percussion & Saxohpones
Sunday 3 April, The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, 1pm, Admission free
Some of the stars of tomorrow from The Royal College of Music perform a programme of three of Xenakis’ works: the gripping percussion trio Okho; the jazz-inspired saxophone quartet XAS; and the thrilling two-part solo percussion work Rebonds.

Xenakis Inspires
Ensemble Exposé conducted by Roger Redgate
Sunday 3 April, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 5.30pm, Tickets £8
Ensemble Exposé's programme pays tribute to the work of Xenakis, featuring three new works by UK-based composers influenced by the composer's music and theories, alongside three of Xenakis' own most famous works.

Charisma X: Iannis Xenakis
Film Screening
Sunday 3 April, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 8pm, Tickets £5
Featuring interviews with friends, family, fellow composers and collaborators, this revealing documentary of Iannis Xenakis by filmmaker Efi Xirou offers a personal view of one of the most pioneering and iconic composers of the 20th century. In Greek with English subtitles. Rated PG (Greece 2008-09, 62 min.)

Kompakt presents 'KrautPopAmbient'
Featuring Burger/Voigt, The Field and special guests
Sunday 3 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm, Tickets £20 £17.50
Kompakt is one of the great independent record labels, treasured for its diverse but ever-brilliant mix of ambient, minimal techno, tech-house and more. Tonight we celebrate their more ambient side as Kompakt co-founders Wolfgang Voigt and Jörg Burger perform a one-off set alongside live visuals. Plus there’s also an exclusive solo live ambient set from The Field’s Axel Willner, one of the stars of Kompakt’s acclaimed roster.

David Eagleman
Monday 4 April, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.45pm, Tickets £10
One of science's great storytellers, David Eagleman, discusses his new work Incognito: The Hidden Life of the Brain. Journeying into the human psyche, Eagleman explores the unconscious and asserts that what we think and feel is not under our conscious control.

Britten Sinfonia Late – The Goldberg Experiment
Monday 4 April, The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 10pm, Admission free
Icelandic producer and Björk-collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson joins violinist Thomas Gould, jazz musician Andy Sheppard and friends of Britten Sinfonia to present their 21st century interpretations of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

Micachu and the Shapes and London Sinfonietta
'Chopped and Screwed'
Tuesday 5 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm, Tickets £17.50 £15 £10
Rising stars of experimental pop Micachu and the Shapes collaborate with the London Sinfonietta for Chopped and Screwed, which features new music blending the organic, the digital and the analogue, in a concert of unique 21st-century experimentalism.

Tim Exile
In Concert
Wednesday 6 April, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.45pm, Tickets £15
Interactive music pioneer Tim Exile improvises an entire show using sounds contributed by audiences during Ether. Straddling the borders between entertainer, composer, performer and software developer, Exile takes whatever comes in and weaves it into compelling, improvised music. Bring your sound, leave your expectations at the door.

'2001: A Space Odyssey'
Featuring Philharmonia Orchestra and Philharmonia Voices
Thursday 7 & Friday 8 April, Royal Festival Hall, 7pm, Tickets £45 £37.50 £30 £22.50 £20,
Premium seats £55
Following a sell-out success in June 2010, Southbank Centre presents Stanley Kubrick's seminal film 2001 – A Space Odyssey with live music. Conducted by André de Ridder, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Philharmonia Voices perform the film's extraordinary soundtrack, as live accompaniment to the screening. Long recognised as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey is celebrated for its technological realism, its Oscar®-winning special effects and its bold use of music. Presented in association with the BFI (British Film Institute),with support from Warner Bros.

Mirror
Friday Lunch
Friday 8 April, Level 2 Central Bar at Royal Festival Hall, 1pm, Admission free
Mirror is a bold new ensemble interpreting and reworking the compositions of keyboardist Dan Nicholls. Featuring the distinctive voices of James Allsopp (tenor saxophone) and Dave Smith (drums), the band's dynamic sound ranges from thrash grooves to barely audible undertones.

Nick Luscombe Presents: The Simonsound
'Friday Tonic'
Friday 8 April, The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, 5.30pm, Admission free
The second Ether event curated by Nick Luscombe features intergalactic synthesiser duo The Simonsound, who channel the pioneering electronics and mood music of the 1960s. They are joined by Debbie Clare (vocals), Laura J Martin (vocals, flute, mandolin) and a spaced-out montage of 1950s and 1960s science, science fiction, space exploration and psychedelic projections. Continuing the sci-fi theme, inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Nick Luscombe DJs across the evening. Expect a blend of futuristic electronic dancefloor sounds.

Pantha du Prince
+ Apparat & Pfadfinderei (live/video) + Walls (DJ)
Friday 8 April, The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 10pm, Tickets £14
Two of the biggest names in German electronic music, Pantha du Prince and Apparat, premiere material from two new remix albums. Having released the critically lauded Black Noise (Rough Trade) last year, Pantha du Prince plays music from his sensational new Versions of Black Noise alongside a brand new live-visuals set. Berlin's Apparat released his edition of DJ Kicks in October 2010 to huge acclaim from the music press. Featuring remixes of the likes of Thom Yorke, Burial + Four Tet, Joy Orbison and Tim Hecker, it reinforced Apparat’s reputation as one of dance music's most diverse producers. Also well known as one-third of Moderat, here he is joined by art-house visuals collective Pfadfinderei. The night is hosted by Walls, aka Sam Willis (Allez Allez) and Alessio Natalizia (Banjo or Freakout), whose new album is out on Kompakt this year. Produced in association with trouble tune.

Reich Drumming
Friday 8 & Saturday 9 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm, Tickets £28 £22 £17 £12,
Premium seats £35
Universally hailed as one of the great composers of our time and heralded by bands such as Radiohead and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Steve Reich has transformed the world of contemporary music. Performing this scintillating modern classic is a stunning line-up of virtuoso percussionists, the Colin Currie Group, alongside Synergy Vocals' Micaela Haslam and Heather Cairncross. There is an opportunity to ask questions of the performers following the 8 April concert as they demonstrate and discuss sections of Drumming.

Oneohtrix Point Never
+ Games (Daniel Lopatin & Joel Ford) + oOoOO (DJ) + Casper C
Saturday 9 April, The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 9.30pm, Tickets £14
Having produced one of the standout albums of 2010 with his LP Returnal, Oneohtrix Point Never was crowned Bleep magazine’s artist of 2010. Returning for his first London show of 2011 he performs new album material alongside specially created visuals, and also presents the UK debut of his new project Games with Joel Ford of Tigercity. oOoOO, aka Christopher Dexter Greenspan, whose sparse chillwave inhabits a dark post-dubstep landscape full of Lynchian shadows and ghostly beats, comes to London for a rare DJ set. Completing the bill is Casper C, the DJ and party curator behind Adventures In The Beetroot Field, Lanzarote and new venture BleeD. Produced in association with trouble tune.

Harmonic Series
James Blake, Seb Rochford, Anna Meredith & Max de Wardener
Sunday 10 April, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 8pm, Tickets £10
Harmonic Series is curated by Southbank Centre Artist in Residence Oliver Coates. This Ether event includes a live set by James Blake, one of the most exciting artists to emerge from London's dubstep scene, acoustic songs by Seb Rochford, an electronic set by Anna Meredith with Rochford on drums and a new work for cello and autoharps by Max de Wardener.

Scene & Heard: Music in a Visual Culture
Thursday 14 April, Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall, 10.30am – 5pm, Tickets £45
Music promoters, programmers and producers join with gallery curators and artists for a day of talks and discussions to consider the blurring boundaries between contemporary music and visual arts. How does musical performance work in art spaces? Are audiences the same for both? Where does music fit within the institutions of visual culture? How can they best collaborate with music organisations?

London Sinfonietta
Louis Andriessen: Anaïs Nin / De Staat
Thursday 14 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm, Tickets £22 £15 £9
Louis Andriessen's music is known for its idiosyncractic instrumental combinations and the combined influences of jazz and minimalism with dissonance, amplification and energetic rhythms. The UK premiere of Anaïs Nin for singer, ensemble and film, is paired with De Staat, a large-scale musical tour de force influenced by the energy of big band music and minimalistic rhythms.
The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall at 6.15pm – Pre-concert talk, Admission free

Rites
Live performance with 3D Visuals
Saturday 23 April, Royal Festival Hall, 7pm & 9pm, Tickets £28 £17 £8 (restricted view, phone only), Premium seats £35
Edgard Varèse: Tuning Up (sketch, completed by Chou Wen-chung)
Gyorgy Ligeti: Lontano
Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov conductor
Julia Mach dancer
Klaus Obermaier concept, artistic direction, choreography
Ars Electronica Futurelab interactive design, technical development
Alois Hummer sound design
Wolfgang Friedlinger lighting design
Digital artist Klaus Obermaier and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra create a 21st-century realisation of Stravinsky’s early modernist masterpiece The Rite of Spring with dancer Julia Mach performing on stage and incredible 3D visuals.

Joan of Arc
Featuring Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp)
Thursday 28 April, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7.30pm, Tickets £18.50 £16 £14
One of the early cinema classics, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) has been hailed a towering masterpiece of silent film and has inspired countless generations of filmmakers. Now Portishead's Adrian Utley and Will Gregory of Goldfrapp have created a new score for the film, soundtracking the powerful and moving story of Joan’s trial, imprisonment, torture and execution. Here they perform it live alongside a screening of the film and are joined by conductor Charles Hazlewood and members of the Monteverdi Choir.

Official Website
www.southbankcentre.co.uk