PORTFOLIO | intertwined

intertwined cross-arts collective

PORTFOLIO

INTERTWINED CROSS-ARTS COLLECTIVE

Tillow (2021)

a film for music and dance

Recorded by Intertwined Cross-Arts Collective.

A new work for music and dance, Tillow was created in response to the cyclical patterns of nature. After the challenges of 2020, much of what we held onto was taken away, with the unnatural cycles and perhaps unhealthy habits forcibly broken. However, the Earth continued to turn, waves kept crashing onto shores, flowers bloomed and withered, the seasons continued to shift, and the Sun rose and set every day. Our new work will explore the artistic ideas of spirals, repetition, and cycles, all in relation to being outdoors in the woods. tillow: to spread; branch out; send forth shoots. Filmed and recorded in Scadbury Park, Chislehurst.

Composed by Clare Elton | Movement direction by Kasia Witek | Filmed and edited by Ruta Puzaite

Performers: Stella Papi & Elisa Vassena

Clarinet/Bass Clarinet improvisations: Heather Ryall | Violin improvisations: Sandy Thompson | Cello improvisations: Zosia Jagodzinska

This project is funded by Help Musicians (Fusion Fund), The Hinrichsen Foundation, and GEMMA Classical Music Trust.

Tillow [TRAILER] (2021)

a film for music and dance

Recorded by Intertwined Cross-Arts Collective.

Composed by Clare Elton | Movement direction by Kasia Witek | Filmed and edited by Ruta Puzaite

Performers: Stella Papi & Elisa Vassena

Clarinet/Bass Clarinet improvisations: Heather Ryall | Violin improvisations: Sandy Thompson | Cello improvisations: Zosia Jagodzinska

This project is funded by Help Musicians (Fusion Fund), The Hinrichsen Foundation, and GEMMA Classical Music Trust.

Initial Devising Session (2019)

for bass clarinet, electronics and two dancers

(music & dance collaboration)

Filmed in a house in North London, August 2019.

A research and development collaboration between music and dance, exploring ideas of the home and memory.

Composer: Clare Elton

Movement concept: Kasia Witek

Bass Clarinet: Heather Ryall

Dancers: Kasia Witek, Robert Keates

CLARE ELTON

COMPOSER

www.clareelton.com

Clare Elton is a composer, collaborator and music teacher working in London. She began this journey studying for her undergraduate degree at Royal Holloway, graduating with a first-class honours in 2014. After this, Clare began a Masters in composition at Guildhall School (2018, Distinction), followed by a Fellowship until 2019. Her music has been heard on BBC Radio 3, performed by ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, EXAUDI, Plus-Minus Ensemble, and Psappha, and at venues including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Union Chapel, Hallé St Peter’s, LSO St. Luke’s and at the Cheltenham Festival and Leeds Lieder Festival. With a particular love of collaboration, further notable projects include working with writers on a chamber opera performed at the Asylum Chapel, a site-specific opera performed at the London Transport Museum, and collaborations with choreographers at The Place and Laban Theatre. In 2019, Clare was on the LPO Young Composers Programme, and she was commissioned by the Barbican to compose a walking tour opera performed at the Sound Unbound Festival. She was also selected for Phase I and II of the LSO Soundhub scheme, with performances in 2021. Last year, Clare setup Intertwined Cross-Arts Collective along with Heather Ryall, with the intention of creating collaborative projects that bring people together from a variety of disciplines and communities to create, share and explore. They received funding for a music and dance piece filmed in a local forest and this has been selected to be showcased in a Swedish film festival Scenkonst Sörmland in 2022. Furthermore, a key part of Clare's professional work involves music teaching, outreach and workshop leading, and pastoral support work. Clare also plays the trumpet for her local Church and the welsh band Thallo, heard on BBC Radio 1 and Radio Wales.

Below is a portfolio of key works composed by Clare:

Tillow (2021)

a film for music and dance

Recorded by Intertwined Cross-Arts Collective.

Composed by Clare Elton | Movement direction by Kasia Witek | Filmed and edited by Ruta Puzaite

Performers: Stella Papi & Elisa Vassena

Clarinet/Bass Clarinet improvisations: Heather Ryall | Violin improvisations: Sandy Thompson | Cello improvisations: Zosia Jagodzinska

This project is funded by Help Musicians (Fusion Fund), The Hinrichsen Foundation, and GEMMA Classical Music Trust.

Under the shadow (2021)

for eight musicians and electronics

Performed by London Symphony Orchestra musicians, 17 July 2021, LSO St. Luke's.

Under the shadow is for eight musicians and electronics. The piece grew out of reflections on the work of various artists’ exploration of shifting light, shadow and morphing perspectives, including Olafur Eliasson, Lis Rhodes, and Dóra Maurer, and also the poem Shadow by Audrey Wurdemann. This work explores the movement of sound, blurred sonic boundaries and luminous resonances. The eight musicians are dispersed throughout the performance space, often acting in dialogue with one another and the surroundings. There is sonic movement, with sounds being passed between musicians, circling and echoing throughout the space. The electronics add further to this spatialisation, like an audible shadow or immersive sonic mist, amplifying and altering past recordings and drawing attention to fragile and imperceptible sounds. Lighting also has a role within Under the shadow, where the shapes and gestures of the musicians themselves are cast onto the architecture, capturing subtle movements.

[It's the first piece in the video below, starting with a twenty-minute installation, with musicians starting at 20:00]

Around (2021)

for percussion, violin, cello and electronics

Recorded by London Symphony Orchestra musicians, February 2021, LSO St. Luke's.

With the bass drum forming the centre around which most of the performance will take place and the musicians often gathering around it, musical ideas will revolve around conversing, remembering and learning. There is a tie to memory and its fragility, where the electronics consist of that which is permanent, in contrast to the acoustic instruments.

[Around starts at 18:26. The video below is the full showcase.]

round and round and... (2020)

for piano

Written for Ben Powell (piano) for Psappha's 'Composing For Piano' scheme 2019/2020.

Taking initial inspiration from simple melodies reminiscent of folk tunes and child-like nursery rhymes, round and round and… revolves around memory and the natural decay of the piano sound. Throughout, there is a playful exploration of the piano as the range expands, yet always within the attempt to sustain the ideas through repetition and looping, working with and against the piano’s decay and inability to sustain. There is a persistence to hold on, to prevent the disappearance of sound, and to remember.

Till time shall cease (2019)

for chamber orchestra

Performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, 1 July 2019, Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank Centre).

Till time shall cease revolves around the idea of a lullaby. Often sung to children with the intention of soothing and aiding their sleep, the lullaby inhabits the line between sleep and consciousness, dreams and reality. Till time shall cease opens with the repetitive rocking inherent in lullabies. The rhythm of breathing characterises the material where there is a simple oscillation between inhalation and exhalation shown through swells in dynamics and a falling minor third. A cantus firmus based on the opening motif of William Bryd’s Lullaby, my sweet little baby stretches throughout the piece, switching between audibility in the foreground to being concealed in the background, as the piece dissolves into a dream-like state and the material becomes fragmented and disorientated.

Years ago I died (2018)

a chamber opera, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, clarinet, violin, cello and electronic

Performed 25 June 2018, The Asylum Chapel, Peckham.

Katie is sure she has died. She is in a sort of Purgatory, where she can still see Heaven. Then her sister Beth comes to visit. How did she get there? Beth urges her sister to go outside and rejoin the living. Katie has not died, Beth claims, she is just suffering from the after effects of a stroke. They both remember their childhood together and how close they were. When Katie was alive. But now, Katie explains, she has died. The libretto was originally inspired by Cotard's Delusion, a neurological condition. Those who suffer from it are convinced they are dead. This site-specific chamber opera was originally written for the environment of the Asylum Chapel in Peckham, which is an old church with stained glass windows above and old walls with peeling plaster over stone. This is the world Katie sees, though in reality she is in a sterile health facility.

(2017)

for electronic tape track

(music & dance collaboration)

Choreographed by Sarah Ann Taylor. Performed by dancers from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, 27 April 2017, Laban Theatre.

The title means "I was the lion", which is taken from the Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis. This piece revolves around the idea of Arabic calligraphy in motion, where movement and music are used to explore themes of identity and beauty while breaking stigmas against language and culture. The electronic tape track predominantly consists of the sound of Arabic being written onto paper as well as a violin, which are both recorded and then manipulated electronically.

Changing Stations (2017) [TRAILER]

an opera, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, violin and electronics

Libretto by Lila Palmer. Performed by musicians and singers from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, in collaboration with workshOPERA, directed by Anna Pool, 14 July 2017, London Transport Museum.

Across London, a rubbish collector, a student, a busker and a corporate drone go about their day. As the day draws to a close, all are drawn together to catch the last train home.

Does I fit?:

A matter of perspective (2016)

for clarinet, trumpet and cello

(music & dance collaboration)

Choreography by Robert Hemming. Performed by dancers from the London Contemporary Dance School, and musicians from Guildhall School of Music & Drama, 1 & 2 December 2016, The Place.

Does I fit?: A matter of perspective explores a communal concept of individuality and anonymity.

Trapped (2018)

for mezzo-soprano and piano

Text by Sharena Lee Satti. Performed 21 April 2018, Leeds College of Music (Leeds Lieder Festival 2018).

After conversations with those suffering from homelessness, Trapped reflects a sense of being stuck in the endless cycle of living on the streets without a home, illustrating the juxtaposition between the freedom from previous situations with the feelings of isolation and loneliness. The mezzo- soprano is repeatedly covered by the piano, hidden within a blur of sound, which dissolves into nothing.

Traces (2017)

for clarinet, vibraphone, electric guitar, violin, cello and two tape recorders

Performed by Plus-Minus Ensemble, 30 June 2017, Guildhall School Music Hall.

Everything fades. By using two tape recorders, musical fragments slowly become erased, obscured and distorted through re-recording and the evolving musical material. A faint trace of the original remains however, set against the backdrop of the constant and independent electric guitar line.

Escape (2017)

for soprano and piano

Performed 19 June 2017, Song in the City: St Botolph without Bishopsgate. Recording broadcast BBC Radio 3, 11 June 2018.

Text taken from the poem Escape at Bedtime by Robert Louis Stevenson.

OTHER NOTABLE WORKS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Psappha: Composing For... Scheme 2019/2020

for piano

Recording in March 2020.

These Wondering Stones (2019)

a outdoor chamber opera, for two sopranos, countertenor and electronics

A Barbican commission. Libretto by Lila Palmer. Performed as part of the Sound Unbound Festival 2019, 18 & 19 May 2019, Cloth Fair Smithfield (outdoors).

Unravelling (2019)

for organ and electronics

Performed 10 June 2019, Union Chapel.

Switch (2019)

for string quartet

Performed by Tom Poster’s Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, 10 July 2019, Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham Music Festival.

What is home? (2018)

For four voices and electronics (with projections)

A music and design collaboration with Felix Scholder (Royal College of Art). Performed 11 & 12 July 2018, Barbican Exhibition Halls.

Fanfare (2017)

for trumpet and two trombones

Performed and recorded live on BBC Radio 3, 14 September 2017, Barbican.

John Creary's Imperfect Journey (2017)

for soprano, mezzo-soprano, flute, bass clarinet

and violin

Text by Oge Nwosu. Performed 23 May 2017, Wigmore Hall.

KASIA WITEK

CHOREOGRAPHER / DANCE ARTIST

www.kasiawitekdance.com

Polish-born London-based dance artist Kasia Witek is a graduate of Northern School of Contemporary Dance (2009), Jasmin Vardimon's postgraduate diploma in Physical Theatre at Royal Holloway (2010) and London Contemporary Dance School (Distinction, 2015). As a dancer she has performed in the works of Rosemary Lee, Lea Anderson, Henrietta Hale, Renaud Wiser, Paolo Mangiola, Mafalda Deville, Marquez and Zangs touring both within the UK and internationally. In 2018 she has performed a solo work with London Symphony Orchestra and danced in “ When The Nest Falls” by Esna Su performed at Alexander MacQueens Foundation. She has recently performed “The Matter of The Soul”, in collaboration with sound artist Kat Austen, at the opening night of UN Climate Change Conference COP24 in Katowice. Kasia’s choreographic work ranges between installation, video, theatre and outdoor performance. As a maker she deals with themes of intelligence of the body and environmental empathy. Working with ecocentric values at the forefront she looks at the connectivity between human body and non-human others. Letting the moving be the solving. She has a particular interest in music and enjoys collaborating closely with composers. In 2014 she was commissioned to co-direct a piece with composer Elliot Galvin for DIPTIK, a company whose performers are both musicians and dancers. Her short dance film Maoz Tsur, based on the eponymous track by electro-acoustic chamber ensemble Sefiroth, has been screened at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. She has been commissioned by an award winning band Blue Eyed Hawk to direct and choreograph a short film for the group's setting of the W.B Yeats poem “O Do Not Love Too Long”. Her choreographic works to date include Arvoles (2013), Slow Knowing (2014), You, Passing (2015), to split a glassy grain of water (2018), one wall of me (current work in progress) and Kat Austen’s The Matter Of the Soul (2018). Kasia is a recipient of Exit Visa Residency at The Place (2016) and an Associate Artist with Polish Cultural Centre in London. Her work has been funded by Arts Council England and supported by Tara Arts Theatre, Coventry University, Greenpeace, Kala Sangam in Bradford and Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds.

Below is a portfolio of key works choreographed by Kasia:

one wall of me (2019)

Filmed at Interplay Theatre, 2019.

Choreography: Kasia Witek
Created with and performed by: Elisa Vassena, Tora Hed, Anders Duckworth, Stella Papi
Music direction: Alex Roth
Cello and voice: Alice Purton
Producing: Rosie Watt (Spin Arts)
Film and edit: Ruta Puzaite

to split a glassy grain of water (2018)

for two dancers

Chisenhale Dance Space, 2018.

Choreography: Kasia Witek
Dancers: Elisa Vassena and Robert Keates
Music: Colin Stetson "The sun roars into view"
Film: Joelle Green
Edit: Kasia Witek

Arvoles Lloran por Luvia (2014)

multimedia theatre production

Integrating aspects of live concert, dance piece and digital art show, Arvoles Lloran por Luvia ("The Trees Weep for Rain") is a unique multimedia theatre production directed by award-winning composer and guitarist Alex Roth.

Conceived and written by Alex Roth and Nick Roth
Produced and directed by Alex Roth
Musical director: Alex Roth
Musicians: Sefiroth
Choreographer: Katarzyna Witek
Dancers: Michael Kelland, Marie Ronold Mathisen, Takeshi Matsumoto, Stella Papi, Elisa Vassena, Katarzyna Witek
Digital artists: SDNA
Set and costume designer: Maya Angeli
Lighting designer: Sherry Coenen

HEATHER RYALL

CLARINETTIST

Heather is a clarinettist and bass clarinettist based in London. She particularly enjoys cross-arts, collaborative work with composers, dancers and artists in other fields. Heather is currently a Junior Fellow at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she recently graduated with a Distinction in the Orchestral Artistry Masters, having competed her undergraduate music degree at Newcastle University and graduating with First Class Honours. Throughout her studies she was generously supported by Guildhall School of Music and Drama, The Zetland Foundation, The Leverhulme Trust, The Altrusa Careers Trust, The Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, The Women’s Career Foundation, and The Yorkshire Ladies’ Council of Education. In 2017 she won the D’Addario Single Reed Prize at the North London Music Festival and has enjoyed playing side by side with the LSO in Trafalgar Square and the Barbican, working with musicians from the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, performing with the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra and performing Richard Rodney Bennett’s Sonatina for solo clarinet in a BBC Radio 3 Total Immersion Concert. Heather particularly enjoys working on contemporary music, improvisation and collaborating with composers in London and abroad; she attended the Ensemble Modern Summer Academy 2018 and will be at Impuls Festival in Graz in 2019. As well as her freelance work as a clarinettist and bass clarinettist Heather plays and performs with a variety of chamber groups and the London Soundpainting Orchestra.

Below is a portfolio of key pieces performed (clarinet/bass clarinet) by Heather:

London Soundpainting Orchestra

August 2016.

The London Soundpainting Orchestra is the first Soundpainting act in the UK, and an evolving collective of artists.

Stockhausen: Kreuzspiel

Guildhall WBP Ensemble, conducted by David Corkhill

Performed 17 October 2017, Milton Court Concert Hall.

Musicians: Roxanna Seddon (oboe), Heather Ryall (bass clarinet), Robert Allan (piano), Lewis Blee, Vittorio Angelone and Yu-Xiu Tsai (percussion).

Nilufar Habibian: Illusion

for solo bass clarinet

October 2018.

Heather Ryall (bass clarinet)

Clare Elton: Does I fit?:

A matter of perspective (2016)

for clarinet, trumpet and cello

(music & dance collaboration)

Choreography by Robert Hemming. Performed by dancers from the London Contemporary Dance School, and musicians from Guildhall School of Music & Drama, 1 & 2 December 2016, The Place.

Does I fit?: A matter of perspective explores a communal concept of individuality and anonymity.

Heather Ryall (clarinet)