Octandre Ensemble: The Open Fund for Organisations
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Way Out East - Composer Portraits
The Octandre Ensemble, founded in 2011 by composer Christian Mason and conductor Jonathan Hargreaves, have featured on BBC Radio 3 (‘In Tune’ and ‘Hear and Now’) and at festivals including Principal Sound, Little Missenden and York Spring Festival. In ‘Way Out East’ they invite you to journey Eastward for three ‘Composer Portraits’, each exploring otherness and ritual from a unique perspective. The atmospheric Coronet (Notting Hill) provides the perfect setting.
04.03.18: Nicola LeFanu
‘LeFanu is renowned for works of imaginative beauty’ (BBC Music Magazine). The Same Day Dawns, featuring soprano Sarah Dacey, sets vivid fragments from Oriental poems, while Deva casts solo cello as goddess, charting a metaphorical journey through a landscape of sensuous instrumental music. The acclaimed Ligeti Quartet will also play Lefanu’s 2nd String Quartet, and music by her mother, Elizabeth Maconchy.
13.05.18: Rolf Hind
Equally renowned as a concert pianist and a composer, Hind draws his inspiration from the Indian culture and language. In this portrait, Way out East – a set of three chamber pieces for the stage, featuring mezzo Lore Lixenberg – is juxtaposed with The Horse Sacrifice, inspired by an ancient Hindu ritual.
17.06.18: Frank Denyer
Denyer’s ‘extensive study of non-Western music…shows in the semi-theatrical, almost ritualistic atmosphere his music creates’ (The Strad). Screens, featuring soprano Juliet Fraser, requires visually arresting dressing screens to conceal performers, while After the Rain, a work of unique beauty, was inspired by Denyer’s experience of the breathtaking regeneration of the Kenyan landscape after an extended drought.