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Details
Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall
The School of Music
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT
England
Programme
Toshi Ichiyanagi – Time Sequence
Richard Beaudoin – Chopin Desséché
Ruth Crawford Seeger – Piano Study in Mixed Accents
Martin Iddon – Mönch
Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre – Suite no.1 in D minor
Conlon Nancarrow – Study no.11 for Player Piano (arr. Ben Smith)
~ Interval ~
Nicholas A Huber – Darabukka
Olivier Messiaen – Ile de feu II
Ryuichi Sakamoto – hibari
Iannis Xenakis – Evryali
Performers
Ben Smith – piano
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
Pianist Ben Smith explores the intricacies of rhythm and repetition in a programme that - amongst other things - investigates dance forms of the French baroque, middle-eastern drum patterns, phasing, and microtimings of rubato and swing. //grooves// considers what happens when numerical abstractions collide with the physicality of performed music. That is, what happens when rhythms become grooves.
Presenting old and new work with radically different formulations of rhythm, the programme is bookended by two ultra-virtuosic works from the 1970s avant-garde: Ichiyanagi’s very rarely performed Time Sequence, and Xenakis’ monumental Evryali.
Ben Smith is a London-based pianist, composer, and occasional conductor specialising in contemporary and experimental music. Hailed as one of “the finest new-music pianists in London” (TEMPO) and a player of “extraordinary precision and insight” (The Guardian), he is in demand both as a soloist and chamber performer (An Assembly, Explore Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Uproar Ensemble). Known for daring and virtuosic performances which traverse the extremes of the contemporary repertoire, he has given dozens of world premieres across the UK and Europe (BBC Total Immersion, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, inn:pust festival, Ny Musik i Birkerød, Transit: Festival voor nieuwe muziek, and at London venues Ambika P3, Barbican Hall, Hackney Round Chapel, Kings Place, Milton Court Concert Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Wigmore Hall). In recent years he has conducted premiere performances of Sarah Angliss’ Giant (Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh Festival), Alastair White’s RUNE (Tête-à-tête Opera Festival), and regularly works as deputy MD on Operation Mincemeat (Fortune Theatre). Ben was a Junior Fellow at Guildhall School of Music & Drama from 2020-2022, where he previously studied with Laurence Crane, Rolf Hind, and James Weeks. His recording of Evan Johnson's complete piano music was released on all that dust in November 2021.
