ENVELOPING SOUND CONCERT SERIES: Ellen Arkbro (SE) with Microtub (UK/NO)

ENVELOPING SOUND CONCERT SERIES
Ellen Arkbro (SE) with Microtub (UK/NO)
8 December @ 21.00 (doors open @ 20.00)

For this concert, Swedish composer Ellen Arkbro will perform together with the microtonal tuba trio Microtub, presenting her work Clouds for three tubas, and her slow songs Speak all voices and It’s been a long time since I heard you sing.
Clouds for three tubas was written in close collaboration with the trio earlier this year. It was commissioned by and premiered at Intonal festival earlier this year. In Ellen’s own words: “This piece, just like most of my work, focuses on slowly unfolding patterns of chords, intervals, and timbral textures. One thing that interests me about working with harmony in just intonation is that many sounds can lock into each other in interaction, sonically fuse, and give rise to harmonic blends, textures, and shapes that are not possible to produce without attending very carefully to intonation and harmonic stability. When this happens, the sound can almost become like sculptures in the space.”

Ellen Arkbro – vocals, trumpet
Robin Hayward – tuba
Martin Taxt – tuba
Peder Simonsen – tuba

Ellen Arkbro
Ellen Arkbro is a sound artist and composer from Stockholm, currently living and working in Berlin. Her music has been presented at Barbican in London, Kölner Philharmonie, Serralves in Porto, Issue Project Room in New York, Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, The Lab in San Fransisco, Ina GRM in Paris and Tempelaukkio Kirke in Helsinki among other places. In Ellen’s music, harmonic sound interacts with the acoustic architecture of the space, and changes in different ways when the listener is moving through the sound. Her chordal textures spread out like invisible sculptures — diamond formations for the listening mind.
www.ellenarkbro.com

Microtub
Robin Hayward: microtonal F tuba
Peder Simonsen: microtonal C tuba
Martin Taxt: microtonal C tuba

Microtub is the world’s first microtonal tuba ensemble. The trio was formed in 2010, a year after Robin Hayward developed the first fully microtonal tuba in collaboration with the German instrument manufacturer B&S.

Microtub have released five albums: Microtub (2011), Star System (2014), Bite of the Orange (2017), Chronic Shift (2019) and Sonic Drift (2021). They have presented their music at such festivals as Sonic Acts in Amsterdam, Ultima Festival in Oslo, Festival Densites in France, Kongsberg Jazz in Norway and FIMAV in Canada. Since 2012 they have been exploring the possibilities that lie in the microtonal tuning system known as Just intonation, using the Hayward Tuning Vine interface as a tool for composing, rehearsing and sometimes also performing the music.