Sylvia Hallett | |
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 Sylvia Hallett in 2018 | |
| Education | Dartington College of Arts |
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Sylvia Hallett (born 1953) is an English musician and composer. She plays many instruments including the violin and she is known for improvisations on unusual instruments. She has appeared at international festivals, often in collaboration with theatres and dance companies.
Hallett studied music at the Dartington College of Arts. She continued her studies in Paris with Max Deutsch.[ citation needed ]
Hallett's instruments have included Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, saw, accordion, found objects such as a bicycle wheel, at times modified by electronics. From the early 1970s, she has appeared at international festivals. She has performed solo and as a duo with Clive Bell. She has also collaborated with artists such as Lol Coxhill, Phil Minton, Maggie Nicols, Evan Parker, and with theatres and dance projects. In 2012 she played in David Toop's "atmospheric opera" Star-shaped Biscuit. [1]
Hallett made several solo recordings, which include improvisations, songs and "tape collage pieces" from her works for the stage. For her recording White Fog, she bowed a bicycle wheel. [1] A review describes "plaintive sounds" of the wheel spokes, expanded to "soundscapes" by digital delay boxes. [2] A second piece on the recording is The Onyx Rook, an improvisation for violin and voice, the third Snail and Curlew, a collage of sounds of "water, bird, and vocal sounds". [2] Hallett made a duo recording Geographers with Clive Bell in 2005. [3] Martin Longley comments that while Bell plays mainly reed and pipe instruments from places such as South East Asia, Hallett included a saw, a bicycle wheel mounted on a spindle, and the viola, on most improvisations modified by electronics. The reviewer describes an atmosphere of "suspended meditation, sustained for over an hour with some extremely varied and resourceful spontaneity", [3] with the sound of the bicycle wheel "uncannily similar to her viola or sarangi, but just a touch rougher". [3]
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as a founding member of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. He was also a member of the groups Art Bears, Massacre, and Skeleton Crew. He has collaborated with a number of prominent musicians, including Robert Wyatt, Derek Bailey, the Residents, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Mike Patton, Lars Hollmer, Bill Laswell, Iva Bittová, Jad Fair, Kramer, the ARTE Quartett, and Bob Ostertag. He has also composed several long works, including Traffic Continues and Freedom in Fragments. Frith produces most of his own music, and has also produced many albums by other musicians, including Curlew, the Muffins, Etron Fou Leloublan, and Orthotonics.
The vertical viola, alto violin or upright viola, is a stringed instrument with the range of a viola that is played vertically in the manner of a cello. It is the fourth-highest member of the violin octet.
Karlheinz Essl is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser, and composition teacher.
Timothy "Tim" George Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968. After the demise of Henry Cow, he participated in numerous bands and projects, eventually concentrating on composing contemporary music and performing as an improviser.
Julie Driscoll Tippett is an English singer and actress, known for her work with Brian Auger and her husband, Keith Tippett.
Stuart Saunders Smith was an American composer and percussionist. After having studied composition and music theory at three music institutions, Smith was currently based in Vermont, United States, with his wife Sylvia. He produced almost 200 compositions, half of which were written for percussion instruments with a focus on the vibraphone.
Aleksander Kolkowski is a British musician and composer whose work combines instruments and machines from the pioneering era of sound recording and reproduction to make live mechanical-acoustic music. He lives and works in London, England.
LaDonna Smith is an American avant garde musician from Alabama. She is a violinist, violist, and pianist. Since 1974 she has been performing free improvisational music with musicians such as Davey Williams, Leland Davis, Michael Evans, Gunther Christmann, Anne Lebaron, Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne, Misha Feigin, Michael Evans, David Sait, Jack Wright, John Russell, Sergey Letov, Toshi Makihara, Andrew Dewar and many other of the world's major improvisers. As a performer, she has toured the US, Canada, Europe, including Russia and Siberia, Korea, India, China and Japan. Her music is documented on dozens of CD and LP recordings, including Say Daybew Records - of Fred Lane & the Debonaires. She produced concerts and festivals in Alabama and the Southeast, including the Birmingham Improv Festival and the improvisorfestival. She serves on the Board of Directors of I.S.I.M., the International Society of Improvised Music. In 1976, LaDonna Smith co-founded TransMuseq Records with Davey Williams. In 1980, The Improvisor magazine began as an extension of I.N.: The Improvisor's Network, a grass-roots organization in New York City that attempted to connect improvising musicians across the U.S. LaDonna is editor-in-chief and publisher of The improvisor. She is a member of the Fresh-Dirt collective.
Jennifer Walshe is an Irish composer, vocalist and artist.
Liza Lim is an Australian composer. Lim writes concert music as well as music theatre and has collaborated with artists on a number of installation and video projects. Her work reflects her interests in Asian ritual culture, the aesthetics of Aboriginal art and shows the influence of non-Western music performance practice.
Rebecca Saunders is a London-born composer who lives and works freelance in Berlin. In a 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000, Saunders' compositions received the third highest total number of votes (30), surpassed only by the works of Georg Friedrich Haas (49) and Simon Steen-Andersen (35). In 2019, writers of The Guardian ranked Skin (2016) the 16th greatest work of art music since 2000, with Tom Service writing that "Saunders burrows into the interior world of the instruments, and inside the grain of Fraser's voice [...] and finds a revelatory world of heightened feeling."
Lindsay Vickery is an Australian composer and performer.
Olesya Rostovskaya is a Russian composer, theremin player, carillonneur, organist, and zvonist.
Elaine "Ray" Barkin was an American composer, writer, and educator.
Janet Eveline Beat is a Scottish composer, music educator and music writer.
Mansoor Hosseini is an Iranian-Swedish percussionist and composer of classical music, born in Iran, who studied in Paris and Brussels. His works comprise chamber music and orchestral pieces. He founded the Ensemble Themus in Gothenburg, focussed on theatrical music.
Hélène Breschand is a French harpist, composer and improviser. Breschand leads a career both as a solo artist as well as in ensemble work, playing both a contemporary repertoire and premiering new works as much as she plays improvised music and musical theater. She is a musician who plays on the verge of several genres ranging from contemporary music to jazz. She plays both written and improvised music.
Annesley Black is a Canadian composer based in Germany and Austria. Her works span from instrumental music to electronics and video performances, from orchestra and chamber music to theatre, solo performances and installations. She has appeared as a performer, improviser and sound-director.
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