Twins - born of the same egg, nurtured together in the womb. But what of our ‘twins’? They are of different ages, genders, nurtured in diverse cultures, separate countries. Their challenge is to find their musical twin, to speak with their own voice but to discover and meet the mirror of themselves through the sound they love most - the sound of their own instrument in the hands of another.

 

Yet twins can’t stay for ever linked only with their own mirror image. Their challenge is also to produce a piece of music that responds to the aesthetic of their fellow twin pairing, to merge their own search for each other with their reactions to the playing of their counterparts on other instruments. Each set will begin with statements from each ‘twin pair’ and conclude with a joint ensemble of all four players. The aim is to produce a seamless piece of music, as if in symphonic form, each section functioning as a movement within the whole.

 

 

 

Each instrument comes with its own history of how it has been deployed within classical or contemporary music (including jazz and experimental). The intention of this series is to focus on musicians who like to use the full range of their instruments’ sonic potential. Although this may well include the use of extended techniques, it doesn’t preclude the use of simple tonality. Each orchestral instrument was designed and developed, often over centuries, to be able to produce characteristic tonal qualities and accurate intonation. The aim of this proposal is to delve into the intrinsic nature of the instrument pairings, to explore the voice of each.