London’s Explore Ensemble present two world premieres by John Croft and Edwin Hillier alongside recent music for ensemble, electronics and video by Lisa Illean and Oliver Leith, as well as Horațiu Rădulescu’s rarely performed yet striking scordatura viola piece Lux Animae.

Programme:

• John Croft, New work (world premiere)
• Lisa Illean, Weather a Rare Blue (2018)
• Edwin Hillier, New work (world premiere)
• Horațiu Rădulescu, Lux Animae (1996)
• Oliver Leith, 664 Love Songs Guaranteed to Cure Heartache (2015)

Explore Ensemble work at the radical frontiers of new music while offering audiences outstanding performances of internationally acclaimed composers, advocating music rarely heard in the UK, and working closely with composers on new works to foster a repertoire for the future. Recent featured composers include Patricia Alessandrini, Joanna Bailie, Natasha Barrett Lisa Illean, Scott McLaughlin, Luigi Nono, Horațiu Rădulescu, Kaija Saariaho, and Rebecca Saunders.

Based around a core sextet and founded in 2012 at the Royal College of Music by composers Arne Gieshoff and Nicholas Moroz, Explore Ensemble has since become one of the UK’s most daring young groups, with performances described as ‘indefatigably outstanding’ (5:4 new music blog), including features at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2016, 2017, and in 2018 alongside the EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, as well as at Kammer Klang / Cafe OTO, Kings Place London, the Principal Sound festival at St John’s Smith Square in London, RNCM’s Future Music festival, at Handel & Hendrix in London, EXPO Oxford, University of Leeds, and the Zeitströme Festival in Darmstadt, Germany. The 2019-20 season sees debuts at Cambridge Music Festival, Greenwich University’s Loudspeaker Orchestra series, and a new open workshops on live spatialisation with Call & Response at Somerset House Studios.