Thursday 1st June | 7pm | £10 advance tickets
Common Ground is a new experimental performance series that brings together a diverse collection of contemporary classical music, art and film, curated by Hannah Shilvock, Maya-Leigh Rosenwasser and Catherine Valvë.
Featuring a world premiere from Ben Nobuto of his new works for bass clarinet, alto sax and piano, a screening of short film ‘She Is Here’ by Catherine Valvë and instrumentalists Hannah Shilvock(bass clarinet) and Maya -Leigh Rosenwasser (piano) will be joined by saxophonist and improviser Lucy Havelock.
Ben Nobuto is a British/Japanese composer, pianist and producer from Kent, UK. With a style described as ‘postmodern’ (Nonclassical), ‘utterly contemporary’ (Manchester Collective) and ‘sonically dazzling’ (RPS Awards), his music explores themes of attention and fragmentation, often drawing from internet culture and popular idioms in a playful, ironic and surreal manner. More often, his music is concerned with the symbolic nature of sounds rather than the sounds themselves, how memory and meaning are embedded and transmitted sonically.
Previous commissions include works for Manchester Collective, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Ligeti Quartet, National Youth Choir and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. His music has featured on BBC Radio 6, Times Radio and Resonance FM and has released on NMC Recordings and Nonclassical. He was recently awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for SERENITY 2.0, his piece for Manchester Collective. As a pianist, he often performs his own work, combining a genre-fluid approach to piano-playing with electronics, as in his performance at UK New Artists’ Leicester Takeover Festival in early 2022.
Recent projects include an orchestral commission from the CBSO, a solo piece for Zubin Kanga’s upcoming album ‘Machine Dreams’, and a 25-minute set for sextet & electronics performed at Leighton House in Holland Park. He is currently working towards a debut album with the support of Sound and Music’s ‘New Voices’ scheme, which is set to release in late-2023.
Other projects include the BentoBeats series, an ongoing string of virtual collaborations across social media, blending classical, jazz and electronic idioms with a hyperactive visual style. In late 2020, he was selected a winner of Roundhouse Rising Festival’s Stems Challenge, a UK-wide competition for young producers.