Winter Festival photographs are here!

We had a fantastic time during the Winter Festival, and we hope those who attended did also. Here are a few photos of our favourite festival moments and events:

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Photograph credits: Celine Smith and  Sabine Tilly

Songs in the wires

One of our more unusual concerts, Songs in the wires, boasts an impressive and varied line-up bringing together performers and composers from Fables – A Film Opera. Taking Melanie Pappenheim, Rebecca Askew and Mara Carlyle – three incredible contemporary singers, who draw on a wide range of musical styles – coupling them with John Reid and Oliver Coates, both associates of The Royal Academy of Music and then finally underpinning it all with the critically acclaimed electronic stylings of Mira Calix, it becomes difficult to see how this concert can be anything short of breathtakingly beautiful!

The concert promises to deliver “the very best new music London has to offer” from Bellowhead members Paul Sartin & Andy Mellon; British Composer of the Year 2009, Mira Calix; the multi award-winning Emily Hall; and the ground-breaking theatre, dance and opera composer, Orlando Gough.

“Orlando Gough is a former member of the 80s band Man Jumping, who Brian Eno famously described as ‘the most important band in the world’”.

With an eclectic collection of artists and composers from such different musical backgrounds, Songs in the wires is destined to be unique in every possible way, and to celebrate this, we thought we’d give you a unique fact about each of the artists involved:

• Rebecca Askew is a member of Orlando Gough’s choir The Shout and regularly performs with Jeremy Avis & DJ Robin Whitnell using state of the art live-looping technology.
• Mira Calix put together her second album, Skimskitta, mostly using recordings of pebbles.
• Mara Carlyle made The Lovely, her first album, on a second-hand laptop in her flat while working shifts at a homeless shelter.
• Oliver Coates attained the highest degree result in the Royal Academy of Music’s history.
• Orlando Gough is a former member of the 80s band Man Jumping, who Brian Eno famously described as “the most important band in the world”.
• Emily Hall loves music from the 70s, including David Bowie, Lou Reed & Velvet Underground.
• Melanie Pappenheim, also a member of The Shout, makes regular vocal contributions to the Doctor Who soundtrack.
• John Reid has taken lessons in song interpretation with Malcolm Martineau and Rudolf Jansen.
• Paul Sartin & Andy Mellon are members of the band Bellowhead, who have their own real ale named after them!

Songs in the wires
Wednesday 15 December, 8.30pm
Christ Church Spitalfields
Tickets: £10, unreserved
Book now!

Keep checking the blog for some tantalising teasers about the Songs in the wires programme!

Artist Focus: Carmina Chamber Choir

We’re very excited to be hosting Iceland’s Carmina Chamber Choir at the Winter Festival. With a name easier to pronounce than Eyjafjallajökull, they will be making their London debut in Spitalfields with an all-Icelandic programme.

Founded in 2004, by their director, Árni Heimir Ingólfsson, they specialise in the undiscovered but beautiful Icelandic choral tradition. They’ve erupted with success in the short time they’ve been together – their recording of the manuscript Melódia won Classical Record of the Year at the 2008 Icelandic Music Awards. In An Icelandic Songbook, they’ll be pairing songs from this with works from another manuscript, Hymnodia sacra, exploring several centuries of music.

In particular, Árni says he enjoys the opportunity to ‘perform 500 year old music for the first time in Iceland’, and that running the group feels like ‘making music with my friends’.

Don’t miss this fantastic group’s introduction to the wonder of early Icelandic music!

An Icelandic Songbook
Wednesday 15 December 2010, 6.30pm
Christ Church Spitalfields
Tickets from £5-£22

Booking now open
For more information see http://spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

What does Spitalfields Music mean to you?

During this year’s Summer Festival we asked members of our audience, the local community and others with close links to us, what Spitalfields Music meant to them. Here’s a little of what came back:

[video by Andy Weir]

See more videos about and by Spitalfields Music on our YouTube channel!