The Culture Collective and Street Genius

Hi everyone,

We would like to give a warm welcome to new members joining the Culture Collective and Street Genius, and also introduce everyone in the group as well as past members. Amah, Nicole, Nabeel and Timo are joining us in the London Sinfonietta's 40th Birthday! Here is everyone's portraits... enjoy!

Amah is a new member of the Street Genius and is currently studying at City and Islington College for her A Levels in Philosophy, English Literature and Media Studies. Amah is a keen photographer and will be documenting the process and exhibiting her photography at the event in Dec.

Emrul Hassan is a member of the Street Genius and worked on the Marketing for ‘The Buildings are Alive’ . Emrul is currently studying in his foundation year at Goldsmiths University in Computer Science and is working on the advertising and marketing for the event in dec.

Nabeel Hassan is a new member to the Street Genius and is currently studying for his A Levels at Southbank College, in Media Studies, Sociology and ICT (information, communication technology). Nabeel is working on the publicity and marketing for the event in dec.

Antoine Francoise is a member of the Culture Collective and is currently studying for his MMUS in Piano and Composition at Royal College of Music. He is principle pianist with NEC, New Contemporary Music Ensemble in Switzerland and works in London with his group Mercury Quartet, for Chamber music. Antoine plays piano and Saxophone.


Jordan Hunt is a member of the Culture Collective and is a composer, violinist and performer. Jordan < performs with The Irrepressibles and has recently had his compositions performed at Royal Academy of Art and The Frieze Art Fair. He has also recorded his work with NMC label.

Katie Keeble is a member of the Culture Collective and is a freelance contemporary dancer and choreographer. She has recently danced with Ascendance Rep Company and Birch and O’Shea, visual arts and dance collaboration. Katie is a graduate of London Contemporary Dance School, and studied dance and film studies in an exchange program at Cal Arts, USA.

Nicole Robson is a new member to the Culture Collective, she is a cellist and currently playing with four bands, The Irrepressibles, The Monroe Transfer, Charly Blue and the Colours, and her band 16 wires String Quartet. Nicole is a graduate of Kings College London in Music.

Rachel Essien is a member of the Culture Collective and a freelance pod caster and production assistant, and currently working with Folded Wing Pod Cast and Marketing Company. She is a graduate from Ravensbourne University in Sound design.

Timo is a new member to the Culture Collective and is currently studying his MMUS masters in Composition and Improvisation at Brunnel University. Timo plays the guitar, laptop and percussion.

Will Crook is a member of the Culture Collective and a freelance animator. Will is currently working with a group of seven animators, designers and graphic designers in a company they have created called ‘Treat’. Will is a graduate from Kingston University in Animation Illustration.

The London Sinfonietta:

Anna Rice has been Participation and Learning Manager at the London Sinfonietta for three years, building links with partners across London and the UK to explore contemporary classical music in new ways and reach a diverse audience. Anna graduated from Goldsmiths University in 2002 with a BAMus, going on to work at the New London Orchestra to administer a large community vocal project in Gospel Oak. Following this she worked at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for two years as Education and Community Co-ordinator before coming to the London Sinfonietta, where she started the Culture Collective and Street Genius programme.

Jamie has been involved in the Culture Collective and Street Genius programme since its inception earlier in the year. His role has been to support the group in developing idea’s, curating the events and working with the London Sinfonietta. Jamie is currently Managing Director of All About the Arts and works as a consultant with London Sinfonietta, SOWF and other arts organisations in London. Jamie is a proud father of his beautiful son.

Past members:

Alika Jeffs aka AJ worked with the Street Genius for The Buildings are Alive... event in the summer, working with Emrul in the publicity and marketing to the event. He also created a word piece to go with animation, based on the thoughts and feelings of the Culture Collective and Street Genius seeing the Psycho Buildings exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.

Benji Fox worked with the Culture Collective for The Buildings are Alive…event in the summer. Benji designed and created the pre-repaired piano (cic.) as part of the interactive instillation piece and composed a piece with Antoine Francoise for animation. Benji is a graduate of London College of Communication in Sound Design.

Tom-Olaf Urb worked with Culture Collective for The Buildings are Alive… event in the summer, composing a piece with animation and as technical support on the day of the event.

We wish AJ, Benji and Tom all the best with their future work.

Our next posts for the Culture Collective and Street genius will be the creative sessions for the upcoming event of London Sinfonietta's 40th Birthday at the Royal Festival Hall, Spirit Level on the 13th Dec 2008!

The Buildings are Alive...

Hi everyone,

Its good to be back working with the London Sinfonietta, we have a really exciting project we are currently working on with the London Sinfonietta but before we start with the new work, Id like to show you some photos from 'The Buildings are Alive...' event in the summer!
Inspired by the London Sinfonietta repertoire and 'Psycho Buildings' exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 2008, you can see more about this exhibition here http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts/hayward-exhibitions/psycho-buildings 

See our website for more info on the event...   

www.thebuildingsarealive.co.uk

The 16th Aug event with Culture Collective, Street Genius and London Sinfonietta was a great day and we had really positive feedback from the audience members who came to see us! On the day we had live performances by the London Sinfonietta players including pianist John Constable playing Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano by John Cage, cellist Tim Gill playing Eternal Escape by Dai Fujikura and percussionist Sam Walton playing Dark Ground by Tansy Davies.



We also had an animation film by Will Crook, a Culture Collective member, created to original compositions by Culture Collective Jordan Hunt, Tom-Olaf Urb and Antoine Francoise and Benji Fox and Street Genius AJ.
These were projected onto five screens placed in and around the musicians on the Clore Ballroom. You can see all the animation films and compositions on the London Sinfonietta youtube site at this address http://uk.youtube.com/user/LondonSinfonietta
The projections also had a film with interviews from the composers and the musicians playing live music, giving their thoughts about the works and their feelings as musicians playing them.



The audience were given headphones which gave them the option of listening to the live performances, and the films being shown which included the animation and interviews.


The audience were encouraged to walk around the space and interact with the installations of the performance. The installation that Benji created was a pre-repaired piano (cic.) that was a piano he constructed out of wood with keys that trigger sound bites. This was a fascinating piece and many adults and children really enjoyed playing with this installation to explore the music.



As well as live music performances, films and installations inside the Clore Ballroom there was also live dance and music performances happening outside, by the Royal Festival Hall, the Southbank and Hayward Gallery.



Here are the dancers in the piece, Masumi Saito, Nick Lawson, Katie Keeble and Jade Yung.

and playing with us is Jordan Hunt, Culture Collectice, on Violin and Sam Walton, London Sinfonietta with percussion.


We performed the piece three times outside and also once inside as a finale to the event on the Clore Ballroom together with Sam Walton playing Dark Ground by Tansy Davies and Tim Gill playing Eternal Escape by Dai Fuikura.



The Street Genius team from all the 22 organisations from the Southbank Cultural Quater also came down to the Royal Festival Hall for 'The Buildings are Alive...' event, it was great to see them all together from all the different art forms they are working with.



The scheme is funded by SOWF Some Other Way Forward, aiming to reach a new audience for young people in Southwark and Lambeth.



With AJ and Emrul ensuring everyone was happy and ready to go! they were flyering during the whole event and talking with the public along the Southbank area getting audience members to come and see what we are doing inside and outside the Royal Festival Hall.



All the photographs from 'The Buildings are Alive...' event are by photographer Justin Pipergev, 2008.

We had a great day on Aug 16th and now we are getting ready for our next event that is being held at the Royal Festival Hall Spirit Level, Southbank Centre on 13th Dec 2008 for London Sinfonietta's 40th Birthday! We'll keep you updated with the process and news about the event and see you there!

Hi,
We had a really great rehearsal last Saturday for the performance coming up on Saturday 16th August for 'The Buildings are Alive...'.
Here are some pics from the rehearsal. We are working with four different types of material as part of the costume of the piece. We have five scores for the dancers and musicians to perform with on Saturday each reflecting different ways of the performers interpretations of their costume, relating to the each other, the music and to the space around them.
In the rehearsal Jordan is playing the Violin and Antoine is playing Sax, with Jade Yung, Masumi Saito and myself dancing. On Saturday Nick Lawson will also be dancing with us and Sam Walton from London Sinfonietta will be playing percussion. We are performing outside at 11.30am, 12.10pm and 1.30pm at the Hayward Gallery and Royal Festival Hall Southbank. At 1.45pm we are performing inside the Royal Festival Hall on the Ballroom Floor to 'Eternal Escape' by Dai Fujikura and 'Dark Ground' by Tansy Davies.
We look forward to seeing you at 'The Buildings are Alive...'

Street Genius

Hi,

Today was the Street Genius Press Launch and all the Street Genius from the arts organisations on the Southbank gathered in the Royal Festival Hall. With talks by the director of The Royal Festival Hall and the director of the Tate Modern, as well as congratulations to a Street Genius now working in a leading graphic design company in London.
The organisations include arts from visual arts with the Tate Modern, film with the BFI, theatre with Southwark Playhouse, dance with Rambert Dance Company and Siobhan Davies Dance Company and of course music with London Sinfonietta among many others.

Here is AJ and Emrul, Street Geniuses with London Sinfonietta at the Launch.
Check them out at www.myspace.com/streetgeniusculturecollective

Recording Some Prepared Piano

recording some prepared piano in preparation for one of the proposed sound installations for the Culture Collective event August 16th @ The Royal Festival Hall on the Clore Ballroom floor!

The London Sinfonietta Culture Collective

From Left: Jordan Hunt; Rachel Essien; Katie Keeble; Benji Fox; Tom-Olaf Urb; Alika Samuel Timothy Agidi-Jeffs; Jamie Colston (www.allaboutthearts.co.uk); Antoine Francoise ; Alison (graduate trainee @ L-S); Will Crook.