Coming Soon – Ben’s Fresh Klang!
Postgraduate composer Ben Jameson tells us about his upcoming performance in an exciting new music series: Kammer Klang is a concert series that was founded by cellist and curator Lucy Railton in 2008, and is currently directed by percussionist and composer Serge Vuille. The series presents thematically linked programmes of new contemporary classical, experimental, improvised and electronic music. Originally based at Charlie Wright’s International Jazz Bar, the concerts now take place at Café Oto in Dalston. Highlights of the current season include performances from the Martin Creed band, Plus-Minus ensemble (co-directed by our own Dr. Matthew Shlomowitz), EXAUDI vocal ensemble, Distractfold ensemble and Kit Downes. Concerts this season also include short opening slots called ‘Fresh Klang’, that give a platform to younger and less established performers.
In the 4th November Kammer Klang concert I will be performing the Fresh Klang slot, playing Grab It!, a piece for electric guitar and pre-recorded backingtrack by Dutch composer Jacob Ter Veldhuis (b. 1951). Ter Veldhuis (or Jacob TV as he likes to be known) describes himself as an ‘avant-pop’ composer, and takes much of his musical material from his earlier experience as a rock musician, but transplants this material into unusual contexts. Grab It! (1999) is one of his ‘boombox’ pieces for solo instruments with backing tracks made of samples from popular culture. The samples in Grab It! are taken from the documentary film ‘Scared Straight’ (1978), which depicts prison inmates trying to frighten juvenile delinquents into avoiding a life of crime.
I originally learned and performed this piece as part of my Masters degree studies at Southampton, when I put on a recital of contemporary music for the electric guitar. Grab It! is challenging to perform, as it requires the guitarist to play exactly in time with the sample track, which moves at a swift pace, and features many rapid changes of time signature. This is a test of both mental concentration and physical stamina. The other challenge to performing the piece is in making various performance decisions that are left relatively open in the score. The guitar version of Grab It! is adapted from an original version for tenor saxophone, and many of the expressive details need to be reinterpreted for the new instrument.