Recent and Upcoming Performances

DECAY

EXMO

19:00, Friday 7 March 2025
St John’s College
St Giles
OX1 3JP Oxford
United Kingdom

The second concert in Experimental Music Oxford’s series Natural Envelopes.

Boulez at 100: Re-imagined

Plus-Minus Ensemble

22:30, Saturday 29 March 2025
BBC Maida Vale Studios (external link)
Delaware Road
W9 2LG London
United Kingdom

Writing in Circles

Only Connect Stavanger

21:00, Thursday 3 April 2025
Maskinhallen
Stavanger
Norway

Plans for Future Operas

Only Connect Stavanger

18:30, Friday 4 April 2025
Skur 2
Stavanger
Norway

Festival opening part 2

Only Connect Trondheim

20:00, Thursday 10 April 2025
Rosendal Teater
Trondheim
Norway

Music in Motion

Apartment House

19:30, Monday 28 April 2025
Wigmore Hall (external link)
36 Wigmore Street
W1U 2BP London
United Kingdom

Apartment House (external link) is synonymous with experimental and contemporary music. The shapeshifting, eternally adventurous London-based ensemble celebrates 30 years of thrilling, thought-provoking performances with a programme that revels in the diverse delights of musical minimalism.

Music in Four Parts

Apartment House

Norfolk & Norwich Festival

19:30, Monday 19 May 2025
Octagon Chapel
21 Colegate
NR3 1BN Norwich
United Kingdom

Sound and perfume swirl in the evening air

City Summer Sounds

19:00, Wednesday 28 May 2025
Performance Space, City University (external link)
College Building, St John Street
EC1V 0HB London
United Kingdom

Mark Knoop performs works that explore the kaleidoscopic possibilities of the piano timbre. Joanna Bailie (external link)’s marblepark positions the instrument inside the “impossible space” of an electronically altered field recording, while Newton Armstrong (external link)’s making one leaf transparent and then another utilises the piano as an extended resonator and Akiko Ushijima (external link)’s Materia adds synthesized instrumental sounds to the live piano. These recent works are paired with Chopin’s last Ballade and the first five of Debussy’s Preludes: ground-breaking works in the piano’s colouristic repertoire.

Plans for Future Operas

Musiikin aika Time of Music

21:00, Wednesday 2 July 2025
Viitasaari Areena
Urheilutie 9
44500 Viitasaari
Finland

About Listening

Musiikin aika Time of Music

19:30, Saturday 5 July 2025
Viitasaari Theatre
Koulukuja 8
44500 Viitasaari
Finland

Matthew Shlomowitz (external link), lecturer, Anna-Sofia Anttonen, saxophone, Mark Knoop, synthesizer.

Playground

Plus-Minus Ensemble

Music we’d like to hear

19:30, Friday 11 July 2025
St Mary at Hill (external link)
Lovat Lane
EC3R 8EE London
United Kingdom

Two premieres from American legend John McGuire, an exquisite recent sextet and a crystalline piano solo. Programme also includes the UK premiere of a delicate late work from Alvin Lucier (external link), realised by bassoonist Dafne Vicente Sandoval, and sculptural miniature works by American visionary Laura Steenberge, inspired by Emily Dickinson's envelope poems.

MenCon

18:30, Wednesday 24 September 2025
The Lab
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
200 Jennens Road, B4 7XR Birmingham
United Kingdom

MenCon is a radical reinterpretation of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Op.64, wherein the solo part remains completely intact (realised by violinist Chihiro Ono), and the orchestral parts are reinterpreted and recomposed by a chamber orchestra of creative musicians from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, led by composer Neil Luck (external link).

Where the Paths End

Plus-Minus Ensemble

20:00, Wednesday 1 October 2025
Whelan’s Main Room
25 Wexford St
D01 H527 Dublin
Ireland

Plus-Minus Ensemble make their Dublin debut together with special guest Ultan O’Brien.