A sonic superimposition for amplified soloist quartet, sinfonietta and electronics.
Premiered at the Erkiti∂ festival in Reykjavik, november 2023. Caput ensemble, conducted by Gu∂ni Franzson.
Critical Bands IIa stems from Lemurs decade-long work with physical, abstract and ephemeral sonic spaces. Combining a fixed score with recorded and processed material, the composition draws on Lemurs highly personal improvisatory language as a tool for spatial exploration.
Lemur joins forces with fellow musicians from Ensemble NEON, asamisimasa and Aksiom in a pumping rendering of Terry Rileys In C.
The minimalist masterpiece of 1964 is the backbone of Sasha Waltz’ new coreography. Together with her dancers she developed choreographic material in similarly variable structure, always leaving room for new variations. This is an experimental, constantly evolving process that once again reconceives and refines Sasha Waltz & Guests’ long-standing approach as well as the dialogue between dance, music and space. The piece is performed by Nagelhus Schia Productions, with members from Sasha Waltz and guests.
Lemur with friends:
Bjørnar Habbestad, flute
Hanne Rekdal, flute
Hild Sofie Tafjord, horn
Inga Byrkjeland, cello
Jonas Cambien, piano
Michael Francis Duch, bass
Morten Barrikmo, clarinets
Silje Aker Johnsen, soprano
Solmund Nystabakk, guitar
Huset spiller!
Bomuldsfabriken kunsthall
27. October 2018
Huset spiller! – or House music! brings together children, young people and professional artists in a large-scale happening organised by the music collective LEMUR. This is the third time that Bomuldsfabriken kunsthall and LEMUR have organised a creative meeting across art forms and age groups.
The production incorporates dancer and choreographer Siri Jøntvedt, visual artist Ellen Røed, composers Thorolf Thuestad and Jon Halvor Bjørnseth, and LEMUR’s Bjørnar Habbestad (flutes), Hild Sofie Tafjord (horn), Lene Grenager (cello) and Michael Duch (double bass), all interacting with children and young people aged 4 to 19. This year’s version has been composed for and with Bomuldsfabrikens spaces, in collaboration with Villa Mathilda kindergarten and music, dance and drama students from Dahlske upper secondary school in Grimstad.
Since 2011, LEMUR has curated the PB1898 concert series at Bomuldsfabriken. For several years they have been working on translating different forms of spatiality into musical works. In collaboration with Arup Acoustic in New York, they developed Critical Band, a site-specific work for highly reverberant spaces that is recomposed for each performance. In Mikrophonie the ensemble explored the internal space and acoustics of instruments, and in Lemuria they collaborated with composer Luigi Nono and architect Renzo Piano on the use of islands as a compositional and spatial metapho
Finally time to premiere our three-part marathon piece: Symphonie magnetophoniqe starts at 9 o’clock at Nationaltheateret metro station, continues at noon on Wessels plass, before culminating in Marmorsalen, Sentralens biggest concert hall.
A three part sound odyssey for transportation hub, public square, concert hall, electronic sound media, four soloists and electronics.
Premiered at the Ultima festival 21 september 2022.
Symphonie Magnétophonique takes place in three different public spaces: a transport hub, a town square and a concert hall. The contrasting social environments of these places and their different listening conditions is woven into the composition: Wireless microphones concealed inside the instruments enable the audience, wearing headphones, to eavesdrop on a ‘secret’ soundscape. Passing audiences and assistants create a continuously changing configuration of sound sources and listening positions. eleme
AMOR/LEMUR finds the Glasgow quartet AMOR in partnership with Norwegian improvising ensemble LEMUR to hopeful and ecstatic effect. Conceived before the onset of Covid 19 but finished during spring lockdown, their eponymous EP is the most loose, alive and elevated recording in AMOR’s catalog. The AMOR/LEMUR collaboration takes the template of throbbing avant disco expanded upon on previous recording, lifting it into new territories, with new tonalities and unexpected turns on the journey.
Following a revelatory concert in Glasgow in January 2020 wherein the two sets of musicians met and performed together for the first time, a recording session was arranged, resulting in the most elevated permutation of AMOR’s art to date.
Richard Youngs, vocals and piano
Luke Fowler, synths and samplers
Michael Duch, bass
Paul Thomson, drums and percussion
Bjørnar Habbestad, flutes
Hild Sofie Tafjord, horn
Lene Grenager, cello
Recorded at Glasgow’s Green Door studios.
Mixed at Chem 19 by Paul Savage
Mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk
Artwork by Oliver Pitt
Released on Night School, January 29, 2021
A site specific work for quartett, electronics, portable listening devices and mobile audience
Premiered at Brannfjellet, Oslo, in collaboration with Konsertforeninga, 2021.
Delian Modes is a composition for four instrumentalists, portable speakers and a mobile audience. At the intersection of sound walks, radio plays and concert music, the audience is guided through different forest environments in encounters with ever new combinations of musicians and electronic sound sources. The work is inspired by the sound design of pioneering British composer Delia Derbyshire.
ALLOY is Lemur´s first collaboration with German pianist Reinhold Friedl. Fusing their practices and their particular taste for live sonic interaction, Friedl and Lemur found common ground instantly.
Meeting in 2015 for a series of concerts and a session in the studios of the Norwegian Academy of Music, the five musicians share experiences from working at the intersection of composed and improvised musics. A combined focus on the use of extended playing techniques, a keen taste for form experiments and the utilization of all different group formations within the available quintet, resulted in an organic but also strictly diciplined album, divided into seven distinct tracks or Components.
The title, Alloy, reflects the pressures and intensities found in such first meetings, where strong expressions and different perspectives are merged.
Recorded by Bjørnar Habbestad.
Edited by Bjørnar Habbestad, Hild Sofie Tafjord and Reinholdt Friedl.
Mixed by Bjørnar Habbestad.
Mastered by Christian Obermayer.
Premiered at Bomuldsfabriken 17 september 2018.
Between 2011 and 2018 LEMUR curated the concert series PB1898 at Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall in Arendal. For the final concert Bomuldsfabriken commissioned a new work to be performed with an ensemble of musicians that have performed in the series. The result was For Harald Solberg, a modular work for 14 musicians and three adjacent gallery spaces. Moving between three different stations, both audience and musicians engage under different conditions. The title of the work is an homage to Bomuldsfabriken’s artistic director, but also points to Morten Feldman’s pieces from the 1970s and -80s, where textile arts are frequently referenced. The link to Bomuldsfabrikens history is thus an important connection (Bomuldsfabriken literally translates to the Cotton Factory).
For Harald Solberg is performed by:
Bjørnar Habbestad, flute
Espen Reinertsen, tenor sax
Morten Barrikmo, bass clarinet / contrabass clarinet
Eivind Lønning, trumpet
Hild Sofie Tafjord, horn
Martin Taxt, tuba
Kari Rønnekleiv, violin
Ole Henrik Moe, violin/viola
Tanja Orning, cello
Lene Grenager, cello
Michael Duch, double bass
Jennifer Torrence, percussion
Ane Marte Sørlien Hoen, percussion
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OVERSETTELSER
Bomuldsfabriken kunsthall
17th january 2015
Oversettelser is the second of LEMURs happenings created for Bomuldsfabriken kunsthall.
When artists collaborate across forms of expression, we interpret, translate, explain and misunderstand each other, often with very fruitful results. Because in this process we negotiate. We search for meaning in what is different and try to understand our own art through that of others. In such processes, new layers of meaning are constantly emerging, like parallel stories, intertwined.
When LEMUR invites colleagues and the Arendal region to the happening Oversettelser – Translations – , it is precisely to search for, investigate and provoke situations and experiences we cannot imagine before they take place. Pupils and kindergarten children meet musicians, dancers, installations, sound and video artists, all in order to create meeting points between the performative and the spatial.
So – to translate is not to reproduce perfectly. To translate is to be open to listening, hearing and sensing the unknown – without letting the fear of misunderstanding or misinterpretation stand in the way of new experiences.
Lemur is Ensemble-in-Residence at Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall and has since 2010 curated the concert series PB1898, which takes place seven Saturdays a year. In 2012, the ensemble also produced the happening Happy Birthday, John Cage! which brought together more than 200 performers in all the rooms of Bomuldsfabriken.
Artists
Øyvind Brandtsegg + Axel Tidemann
Lotta Melin
Trond Lossius + Jeremy Welsh
Jon Halvor Bjørnseth
Eirik Havnes
Isak Anderssen
Atle Selnes Nielsen
LEMUR
Dahlske upper secondary school
Villa Matilda
Steiner School in Arendal
Arendal Culture School
