Backstage

Available for over a year

Nikki Bedi introduces The Arts Hour Backstage, a strand which captures behind the scenes buzz from headline cultural events, as they take place. This week Nikki is at the rehearsal for BBC Radio 3’s Open Ear concert of cutting edge experimental music, listening to the most extraordinary sounds and talking to the people who create them. She meets Exaudi who perform Help with Adverbs by the American composer Amber Priestley. The language sounds like English but maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t. Sarah Angliss introduces us to `Hugo`, the automated head of a ventriloquist’s dummy and she demonstrates the intricacies of playing the theremin which uses electronic frequencies to create sound without the player even touching it. She performs with percussionist Stephen Hiscock in her two compositions which make up Ealing Feeder. Swiss percussionist Serge Vuille talks about imitating Corsican cicadas with wooden blocks in Fritz Hauser’s piece As we are Speaking. The Italian composer Lorenzo Pagliei presents his Corpi Celesti which was inspired by the tragic events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. French pianist Gwen Rouger performs Raphaël Languillat’s La Flagellation du Christ and the world première of Sarah Nemtsov’s Seven Thoughts – her kind. And the group We Spoke perform Simon Loeffler’s composition entitled simply b, which was inspired by electronic musical equipment distorted by fluorescent lights and other electronically interfering impulses. Photo shows Sarah Ingliss and Stephen Hiscock (c) BBC