On Thursday 11 June we launch Supersonic 2015 with a very special opening concert will take place at the famous Birmingham Town Hall, a Victorian Roman revival grade I listed building. In the sixties and seventies, the venue saw performances from the cream of contemporary music, including Soft Machine, Roberta Flack and, of course, Black Sabbath.
The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble is set to be a breathtaking aural and visual spectacle in these hallowed environs. As one half of the electronic music sensation Goldfrapp, producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory is passionate about creating new sounds and reinventing old ones. Here a stellar line-up stretches the possibilities of the Moog synthesiser through newly composed music, transcriptions of classical works, and their own versions of music from popular culture and film. Marvel at ten musicians on stage, including Portishead’s Adrian Utley and composer Graham Fitkin, perform works by Bach, John Carpenter, Burt Bacharach and Oliver Messiean on a fascinating array of vintage instruments, their oscillators so sensitive to temperature and movement that there seems almost something organic about these gorgeous machines.
To mark the tenth anniversary of Robert Moog’s death, a new piece by Gregory features a clocking device specially built for the ensemble that enables all ten synths to be synced, producing music previously impossible to perform live. The result will be the audio equivalent of a Bridget Riley painting; full of colour and interlocking complexity whilst driving and immediate.
Fains are a new improvised project by Nick Jonah Davis on electric guitar and Johanna Cormack on violin creating sonic landscapes and new musical textures.
www.nickjonahdavis.com
Produced by SoundUK and hosted at Town Hall
