KINGS PLACE’S EARTH UNWRAPPED: SIRENS FOR A WOUNDED PLANET
Mercury Prize nominated singer-songwriter Sam Lee, composer and producer Gazelle Twin and sound artist Jason Singh are Artists in Residence
Premieres and commissions from Erland Cooper, Raquel García-Tomas, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Josephine Stephenson and Julia Wolfe
Highlights embody a weekend of deep listening curated by Daniel Pioro, People Weekend impressed by birdsong and new Soundscape set up from Alice Boyd, The Sound of King’s Cross
Artists embody Alice Coote, Andrew Staples, Aurora Orchestra, BBC Singers, Carice Singers, Laura Cannell, Mary Bevan, Manchester Camerata, Nicolas Altstaedt, Olivia Chaney, Piatti Quartet, Sacconi Quartet, Soumik Datta, The Home of Bedlam, Voces8 and extra
Kings Place announce the primary wave of occasions for Earth Unwrapped, the newest in its award-winning year-long collection beginning in January 2025. Sub headed Sirens for a Wounded Planet, the collection brings artists collectively to discover our relationship with nature and the eco-system, vegetation and ornithology, the local weather disaster, activism, protest and extra, by means of music and spoken phrase.
Earth Unwrapped is the seventeenth within the Unwrapped collection at Kings Place, which has turn into famend for inventive programming; its 2019 collection Venus Unwrapped, which celebrated feminine artists, gained the Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2020 for Finest Live performance Occasion and Sequence.
Sam McShane, Creative Director of Kings Place, stated: ’Connecting with the earth and nature is important for our wellbeing, particularly on this digital age. The humanities have at all times performed an essential function in speaking advanced social challenges and we’re so very fortunate to have among the world’s most interesting and passionate artists to inform essential narratives surrounding our on a regular basis life on Earth. All through this yr, we invite our audiences to come back collectively, be a part of our group to hear, study and be impressed.’
Artists in Residence – Mercury Prize nominated singer, arranger, people tune interpreter and passionate conservationist Sam Lee options as one of many Artists in Residence for the collection. Sam’s work as an artist has damaged boundaries between modern and conventional music and the assumed methods people tune is appreciated and can be a change maker within the trade as a co-founder of Music Declares Emergency, a Featured Artists Coalition board member and works with main environmental charity EarthPercent.
Sam begins his residency with a big day of occasions in March entitled Assembly is a Nice Place, exploring the connection between nature and kinship. He performs his beloved album Songdreaming within the elegant acoustic of Corridor One, in addition to a particular occasion celebrating the hole oak – additionally in Corridor One – a room made solely of 1 tree ‘Contessa’, a 500-year-old German oak tree. Producer and creator Tom Mustill presents his whale tune soundbath in Corridor Two with the d&b audiotechnik Soundscape system, and there will likely be a particular movie reflecting on the impermanence of life and nightingale tune by Emergence Journal [15 Mar]. He returns in September for The Nice Harvest Feast, the place audiences are invited to affix Sam and invited company to rejoice the traditions of harvest time, culminating in a musical feast to welcome within the harvest season by means of tune.
Gazelle Twin – moniker of UK composer, producer, singer and visible artist Elizabeth Bernholz – additionally options as Artist in Residence for Earth Unwrapped. Her ever-changing, identity-warping personas primarily based on highly effective, emotional themes has pushed her output and plenty of collaborations, together with work on studio albums, soundtracks, artwork installations and extra. She presents three particular tasks as a part of the collection, beginning with a recreation of her We Wax. We Shall Not Wane set up through the opening weekend, that includes a pre-recorded narration by Maxine Peake [18 Jan], the ultimate London efficiency of her newest critically acclaimed album Black Canine, and concluding with a brand new present specifically created for the collection utilizing the d&b audiotechnik Soundscape system in Corridor Two.
Sound artist, nature beatboxer, producer and DJ Jason Singh completes the Artist in Residence line up for Earth Unwrapped. His ongoing exploration of nature, interspecies interactions, voice, expertise and cross artwork kind collaborations with musicians and wildlife specialists feed into a variety of multi-faceted tasks within the UK and internationally. For Earth Unwrapped, he continues his long-running reference to the pure world with a collection of occasions starting with a dwell soundtrack to the 1929 silent documentary Drifters about Britain’s North Sea herring fishery [17 Jan], adopted by Moon Scales, an immersive large-scale, multichannel sound set up consisting of eight spatialised soundscapes set round a suspended duplicate of the moon [17 May]. He concludes with a brand new audio-visual mission as a part of the Jason Singh Quartet that tells the story of the extraordinary polymath Jagadish Bose, whose work as a physicist, biophysicist and botanist modified the world [19 Oct].
Classical highlights – The Sacconi Quartet and Competition Voices open Earth Unwrapped with a uncommon efficiency of Terry Riley’s Solar Rings, celebrating Riley’s ninetieth birthday in 2025 and the primary London efficiency of the work in over 20 years. Utilising audio recordings of NASA’s Voyager I and II, the 10-movement suite questions humanity’s place within the universe [16 Jan]. The Ligeti Quartet additionally rejoice Riley with a efficiency of his seminal work Cadenza on the Night time Plain and the premiere of a brand new association of Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, introduced by means of the d&b audiotechnik Soundscape system [8 Feb]. Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices current the UK premiere of a brand new work by Julia Wolfe (a Kings Place fee) alongside Nigel Osborne’s The Tree of Life, impressed by his work in Lebanon with Syrian youngsters in refugee camps [28 Feb], and Erland Cooper presents the world premiere of his new work The Peregrine for small ensemble, impressed by J.A. Baker’s guide of the identical title [5 Dec]. Cellist Nicholas Altstaedt joins the Carice Singers for a night of outdated and new music – together with premieres from Raquel García-Tomas and Josephine Stephenson, in addition to music from Galina Grigorjeva and JS Bach – that questions our relationship with an more and more threatened atmosphere [13 Dec].
Virtuoso violinist Daniel Pioro joins forces with Manchester Camerata for a never-heard-before interpretation of Vivaldi’s The 4 Seasons, interspersed with newly commissioned poetry by Sir Michael Morpurgo learn by the author, actor and comic Stephen Fry and preceded by Caroline Shaw’s The Evergreen, launching a brand new launch on the Platoon label [18 Jan]. Pioro additionally curates a weekend of deep listening entitled Time Unravelling, Sound Unfolding, a Kings Place fee impressed by Pauline Oliveros’ idea of deep listening – audiences are invited to actively hear and discover emotional states by way of the music of Bach, Oliveros, Tenney and a brand new fee in collaboration with Valgeir Sigurðsson [14-15 Jun]. Oliveros’s music additionally options in a live performance from The Home of Bedlam and soprano Juliet Fraser, which pairs her To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation – written within the aftershock of political upheavals of 1968 – with Larry Goves Crow Rotations, carried out in-the-round and enhanced by means of the d&b audiotechnik Soundscape system [7 Nov].
Aurora Orchestra – Resident Ensemble at Kings Place – current a year-long exploration of Gustav Mahler and his fascination with nature, beginning with a efficiency with the BBC Singers of his ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ (‘I’m misplaced to the world’) from his Rückert Lieder, alongside Fauré’s Requiem and works by Kim Porter and Britten [31 Jan]. They later carry out Mahler’s musical homage to the pure world, Das Lied von der Erde, with Alice Coote and Andrew Staples, in addition to Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin du printemps and Jean-Féry Insurgent’s Les Élémens [5 Apr], and return to carry out Iain Farrington’s chamber association of Mahler’s Symphony No.4 and Richard Ayre’s No.42 Within the Alps, joined by soprano Mary Bevan [4 Oct].
Kings Place’s Resident Quartet the Piatti Quartet current a programme that takes a up to date have a look at our relationship with nature and the English panorama – centred across the poet Alice Oswald, the quartet carry out works by Joseph Phibbs, Imogen Holst, Thomas Ades and Britten, with narrations from actor Alex Lawther [22 May]. Voces 8 be a part of forces with the Carducci Quartet for The Misplaced Birds, a night paying tribute to chicken species pushed to extinction by humankind [19 Nov], and the Solem Quartet current a night of music that contemplates and mourns Earth’s present situation, with works from Hildegard von Bingen, John Metcalf, Nick Martin, Meredith Monk and Max Richter [29 Nov].
People highlights – Kings Place’s annual People Weekend this yr seems to be to the ornithological world, with performers from throughout the modern people scene together with Eliza McCarthy, Martin Simpson, Chris Wooden, Miranda Rutter and Rob Harbron, and The Wilderness But celebrating and shining a highlight on all issues avian, from new songwriting to musical dialogues with birds [25-27 Apr].
Olivia Chaney – in whose music the search for find out how to dwell peacefully alongside the Earth is ever current – performs Fashionable Myths & Pastorales, a solo present of each new and outdated materials specializing in historical pastorale to city iconoclasm [17 Jan]. Mari Kalkun performs music rooted in Estonian and Võru traditions from the guts of the Estonian forest [24 Jan], and The Rheingans Sisters current apocalyptic songs that ponder the dystopian fashionable period in distinction to the pure world [10 May]. People ‘grande dame’ and eco-feminist Peggy Seeger joins the Earth Unwrapped line up for her final ever dwell London live performance, alongside her sons Neill and Callum MacColl to rejoice her illustrious profession and current a remaining new album [6 Jun].
Modern and Jazz highlights – Musician, sound artist and audio producer Alice Boyd creates a brand new soundscape set up for Earth Unwrapped, entitled The Sounds of King’s Cross, immersing audiences within the vibrant sounds of King’s Cross’s city inexperienced areas and weaving the pure atmosphere of town with the voices of those that take care of these cherished areas [5 Apr]. Boyd additionally performs together with her ensemble in Corridor Two, sharing their newest music impressed by a visit to the Cairngorms retracing the steps of legendary nature author Nan Shepherd [5 Apr].
Laura Cannell presents her newest album, an providing of up to date minimalism to polymath Hildegard von Bingen, thought-about by many to be the founding father of scientific pure historical past in Germany [1 Feb]. Hayden Thorpe (Wild Beasts) collaborates with best-selling creator Robert Macfarlane for Ness, an adaptation of his 2019 novella of the identical title – the work is a poignant and cinematic response to cultural conversations surrounding the atmosphere [7 Feb]. Aga Khan Music Award winner Soumik Datta presents Borderlands, weaving sarod, private tales of migration and cinematic textures in encompass sound by means of d&b Soundscape [16 Mar], and Norwegian drummer Terje Isungset returns to Kings Place together with his quartet that includes voice, ice harp, ice horn, iceophone, ice percussion and ice bass, made throughout Isungset’s annual Ice Music Competition in Norway and crafted utilizing solely pure frozen ice from the lakes [Nov – tbc].
Tickets for the primary wave of Earth Unwrapped occasions are on common sale by way of the Kings Place web site right here. Additional occasions will likely be introduced in the end.
