Retorica

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Harriet Mackenzie and Philippa Mo (violins)

Robert Fokkens (electronics)

Robert Fokkens: Dances and Chorales (violin duo and live electronics, 2017)

Wendy Hiscocks: New Work (violin duo, fixed-media electronics and film, 2017)

John McCabe: Spielend (violin duo, 2003)

Acclaimed violin duo Retorica return to Cardiff to present a project exploring multimedia performance. With a growing international reputation for excellent performances of both classical and more contemporary music, Retorica has been praised by Gramophone magazine for the ‘faultless technique and unfailing insight’ of their playing.

Robert Fokkens’s Dances and Chorales is a large-scale new work for violin duo and live electronics building on ideas Fokkens has been developing with Retorica since 2015, exploring music for violins and stringed instruments from around the world. This is paired with a new work by Australian composer, Wendy Hiscocks, an audio-visual presentation scored for violin duo and a pre-recorded sound track inspired by the flower paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, experimental silent films of the early 20th century and innovative British documentaries of the 1930s. The music will inter-marry with a three-part film, the sounds engaging in counterpoint with the images and the two choreographed as one to create what is effectively an audio-visual ballet. Finally, Retorica performs McCabe’s Spielend, a work written for Philippa Mo which explores the notion of ‘playing’ in the broadest sense of the word.

This concert is part of the 2017/18 concert series at the School of Music