Riot Ensemble

Riot Ensemble will make their Wigmore Hall debut with chamber music by Aaron Holloway Nahum, Anna Korsun, Ashkan Behzadi and more.

Ernst von Siemens Foundation Ensemble Prize winners, Riot Ensemble connects people to great contemporary music in concerts and events that are just as innovative, vibrant and rewarding as the music itself. The members of Riot are some of the top European soloists in new music, and with Riot they work as performers, curators, commissioners, and collaborators, creating and producing a diverse array of projects.

Based in London, Riot is particularly active in bringing emerging international voices to the British new-music scene and since 2012 has given over 200 World and UK premieres by composers from more than thirty countries. Their annual call for scores received 436 submissions in 2020, and in the past 6 years has resulted in almost twenty commissions. Additionally, they enjoy close working relationships with some of the most important composers of our time, including Clara Iannotta, Chaya Czernowin, Ann Cleare, and Georg Friedrich Haas whose evening length piece Solstices was commissioned by Riot in 2019.

Their release on Huddersfield Contemporary Records, Speak Be Silent, was named one of the ten most important recordings of the year by Alex Ross in the New Yorker, and has been praised as ‘one of the best recordings of 2019’ by Sequenza 21 and ‘a most impressive release’ by Australia’s Limelight magazine. They have also recently released a disc featuring Jonathan Harvey’s Song Offerings, recorded at Deutschlandfunk in Köln and are currently working on a new release of Patricia Alessandrini’s chamber music for HCR. Riot features regularly on BBC Radio 3 and enjoys radio broadcasts across Europe.

This concert was recorded live at Wigmore Hall in February 2021 and will be broadcast in HD video.

Artists
Adam Swayne piano
Marie Schreer violin
Stephen Upshaw viola
Louise McMonagle cello
Sarah Dacey soprano

Weaving together the natural elements of earth, water and air, this program explores the idea of voices in the natural world – from the spiralling clouds of Aaron Holloway-Nahum to the ghosts of the forests in Michaela Catranis’ sensuous quartet to the rippling delicacy of Lee Westwood’s work for solo piano. The sound of singing is also ever present, featuring the world premiere of Naomi Pinnock’s Vestige alongside the ecstatic Farsi poetry of Ashkan Behzadi and the string trio gently singing/playing in the darkness of Anna Korsun’s Sottillissime.

Program
Aaron Holloway-Nahum (b.1983) The Geometry of Clouds
Naomi Pinnock (b.1979) Vestige (live performance première)
Lee Westwood (b.1982)​ A Line Drawn In Water​
Michaela Catranis (b.1985) The Ghosts in These Trees
Ashkan Behzadi (b.1983) Az hoosh mi
Anna Korsun (b.1986 ) Sottilissime

Thursday 18 February 2021 2:30pm EST / 7:30pm GMT
This concert will be available on demand for 30 days after the date of the concert.

To enjoy this concert visit: www.wigmore-hall.org.uk