Together electronic music and field recording have the potential to confront us with worlds ranging from hyper-realistic soundscapes to the most abstract and impressionistic realms of the imaginary. Join us as we explore this terrain between the Real and Unreal in BEAST FEaST 2016, our annual festival of music and ideas. Featured artists include World Soundscape Project director and granular synthesis pioneer Barry Truax, Mexican composer Sergio Luque, whose extended non-standard synthesis approaches have established him as the heir apparent to Xenakis’ stochastic sound generation techniques, and BEAST founder and former director Jonty Harrison, who returns to bring us his latest extended opus based on field recordings from around the world. Also featuring music and performances by Carl Stone, Natasha Barrett, John Young, Hans Tutschku, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, Leah Reid, Till Bovermann and many others.
Programme
Thursday 28 April 19:30 Dome Room
Our festival opener includes music by Truax, Luque, Lopez-Lezcano and others.
Friday 29 April 10:00 Dome Room
The first of several sessions of talks and demos, free and open to the public. Come and hear festival members discuss their music and ideas!
Friday 29 April 13:10 Barber Concert Hall
Till Bovermann and colleagues perform using their amazing custom-made PushPull instruments, and Jan Trützschler returns to Birmingham to present his improvised Post Code 3 Beta.
Friday 29 April 14:30 Dome Room
More ideas and discussion with festival artists.
Friday 29 April 19:00 Elgar Concert Hall
The first of two evening concerts including works for video and live performance alongside fixed media works. Highlights include music by Natasha Barrett, Sergio Luque and Theodoris Lotis.
Friday 29 April 20:30 Elgar Concert Hall
Live computer music pioneer Carl Stone performs his Chinjuuya (珍獣屋), composed especially for BEAST, alongside the premiere of a new commission by featured artist Barry Truax, and music by Savannah Agger and others.
Saturday 30 April 11:00 Dome Room
More ideas and discussion with festival artists.
Saturday 30 April 14:00 Elgar Concert Hall
BEAST founder Jonty Harrison returns to give the Birmingham premiere of his concert length work Going / Places.
Saturday 30 April 16:00 Elgar Concert Hall
Highlights include music by Adrian Moore, Hans Tutschku, and Annie Mahtani.
Saturday 30 April 20:00 Elgar Concert Hall
The festival closer features Barry Truax’s Earth and Steel, Sergio Luque’s Surveillance, and Columbian composer Jorge Garcia’s beautiful Huzun.
