New Music: Marie Schreer, violin, Taher Adel, poet, and Aaron Holloway-Nahum, electronics

Marie Schreer – New Work

Ashkan Behzadi – Ballads: Oblique

Perttu Haapanen – in vitro

Aaron Holloway-Nahum – If I Am From Somewhere I Am From There

The works by Marie Schreer, Ashkan Behzadi, and Aaron Holloway-Nahum are part of a collaborative project curated by Schreer with support from the PRS Foundation, Vaughan Williams Foundation and Francis Routh Trust.

‘A champion of music of various genres’ (The Strad), UK-based violinist Marie Schreer is both a compelling interpreter of new works and a prominent exponent of the Western classical tradition. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has had over forty works written for her and is featured on dozens of releases alongside renowned artists including Lars Vogt, guitarist John Williams, Evan Parker, and Kate Williams. Marie is co-Artistic Director and violinist of award-winning Riot Ensemble and also holds the position of Section Leader Second Violins at The Hallé in Manchester. She is in high demand as guest principal with orchestras and ensembles across the UK and has performed throughout Europe, South America and Asia.
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Marie co-founded contemporary violin duo Mainly Two as well as The Guastalla Quartet, with whom she won ‘Best Album’ at the 2020 All Party Parliamentary Jazz Awards. They also co-run record label Turquoise Coconut which releases new music of all kinds and hosts a podcast featuring interviews with internationally acclaimed artists, including improviser, author and educator Stephen Nachmanovitch and South Indian violinist and composer Jyotsna Srikanth.

Taher Adel, a British-Bahraini poet, holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. He is the author of five poetry collections, the latest being I Don’t Know What Language I Dream In. He has served as a judge for the Stephen Spender Poetry Prize and as Poet in Residence for Wells-next-the-Sea. His works have appeared in Ambit, Poetry London, on BBC Radio, and at TedX.

Aaron Holloway-Nahum (b. 1983) is one of his generation’s leading composers, conductors and recording engineers. Characterized by experimental narrative structures, a growing interested in live multi-media, detailed, ornate timbres and bold melodic unisons, Aaron’s music has been performed in nearly twenty countries, and his commissions include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Plural Ensemble, The Pannon Philharmonic, HOCKET, and Third Coast Percussion.

Aaron’s career combines this compositional knowledge with a variety of additional skills. A growing interest in spatial audio – alongside his experience as a recording engineer and managing director of Coviello Productions (the Arditti Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, Ensemble Intercontemporain, etc…) recently led Aaron into a role as the Head of Soundscape with Southby Productions.

This is my fifth season as the New Music Curator at Kettle’s Yard, and it’s a real pleasure to see just how keen musicians are to come and play in this uniquely special place. We started the year with the fantastic Ligeti Quartet returning to us for the first time since 2018. Their concert set up something of a theme for this series, with great composers from the end of the last century sitting alongside music composed in recent years. Although each concert will be completely different, like the Ligeti Quartet, the Leonore Trio, Marie Schreer, Joseph Havlat and Deni Teo are all mesmerising performers. They can communicate directly with an audience, as they take us through fascinating, beautiful, wild, gentle and engrossing evenings of music.