Watch Videos Zappanale 2018 Cafe OTO 2017 Tokyo 2015
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Lindsay Cooper Songbook Tech
Spec Stage
Plan Half the Sky Tech Spec Stage Plan
Forthcoming dates 2020:
Yumi Hara will be playing a selection
of Lindsay Cooper compositions
during her mini Japan tour 18-20 July.
20 July gig will be live streamed worldwide from Akihabara
GOODMAN, Tokyo,
due to be closed down in mid-August.
As it is a no-live-audience, free-to-view live streaming,
donations are most welcome.
More about the gig and how to donate here
Forthcoming dates 2021:
*Yumi Hara
2nd solo album launch + retrospective 2-day residency at
Cafe OTO, 27-28 June 2020 has now been postponed exactly
one year to
26-27 June 2021. Yumi will be playing a selection of
Lindsay Cooper compositions with Toshiaki Sudoh and
Chris Cutler (+possibly more, hopefully)
THE WATTS, Jump for Joy!, Itako Sisters, Sonic Rituals
duo, Lindsay Cooper Songbook Alone+, Yumi Solo
materials+Canterbury Favorites, DJ Marina Organ (The Other
Rock Show/Resonance FM) and DJ Kyle McCallum (Extra Normal
Records/Contra Pop) are confirmed.
2019:
Lindsay Cooper Songbook Celebrates International Women’s Day
2019
The
Lindsay Cooper Songbook group regret to announce that for
the forthcoming concerts in March, Dagmar will not be
performing with us. This is due to a serious back condition
from which she needs more time to recover. Stepping in as
lead vocalist is Atsuko Kamura, whose work we have admired
for many years. Kamura began in music in the 80's as
vocalist and bassist of Mizutama Shobodan (Polka Dot Fire
Brigade), the first feminist punk band in Japan. She toured
the US with Tenko
as the Honeymoons, joined the Frank Chickens in London, and
the anglo-Japanese jazz progressive rock band Setsubun Bean
Unit, and initiated projects such as I am a Kamura, with
Robert Storey, and Kamura Obscura. Throughout her work she
has maintained clear political, feminist, and ecological
positions, campaigning recently against nuclear power,
following the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
Yumi Hara
(p, keys, harp, vo)
Chris Cutler (dr)
Chloe Herington (bassoon, soprano sax, melodica)
Tim Hodgkinson (clarinet, alto sax)
Atsuko Kamura (vo)
Mitsuru Nasuno (bass)
7 March 2019: Free Range, Garage Coffee @ Fruitworks, 1-2 Jewry Lane, Canterbury, CT1 2NR
8 March 2019: International Women's Day, Cafe OTO, London, UK BUY TICKETS
9 March 2019: Bonn, Germany 20.00 Uhr
Dialograum Kreuzung an St. Helena Bornheimer Straße
130, 53119 Bonn http://www.kreuzung-helena.de/home/
10 March 2019: Münster,
Germany
Theater im Pumpenhaus Gartenstraße 123, 48147 Münster https://www.pumpenhaus.de/
‘… a solid ensemble with the music perfectly rehearsed but also with an unusual warmth ...
…a very emotional finale to the festival...' Victorio Calvo
'...Each sound they played was polished to the extent that no other sounds would have been suitable to play Lindsay Cooper's music’
'I was extremely impressed by this superior ensemble which recreated Lindsay Cooper's music in the best form imaginable. Osamu Sakamoto (EURO ROCK PRESS)
ABOUT LINDSAY COOPER:
Lindsay Cooper (1951-2013) brought the bassoon and the compositional techniques of 20th century art music into the world of ‘70s experimental rock. She was a musical polyglot, equally fluent in classical, rock, jazz, and free improvisation and the author of many film and theatre soundtracks. She was a member of the groups Comus, Henry Cow, National Health, David Thomas and the Pedestrians and the Mike Westbrook Orchestra. She co-founded News from Babel and the Feminist Improvising Group and led her own projects Music for Films and Oh Moscow. She lived for many years with multiple sclerosis, which eventually forced her to retire from performing in the 1990s.
PROGRAMME:
A selection of Lindsay’s compositions for the groups Henry Cow, News From Babel and Music for Films, 1978 – 1982.
ENSEMBLE:
Yumi Hara: arrangements, piano, keyboards, lever harp, voice (The Artaud Beats, you me & us, Jump for Joy!, THE WATTS etc)
Chlöe Herington: bassoon, soprano sax, melodica (Knifeworld, Chrome Hoof, VÄLVĒ)
Dagmar Krause: voice (Henry Cow, News from Babel, Slapp Happy etc)
Nasuno Mitsuru: bass (Korekyojinn, Altered States etc)
Tim Hodgkinson: clarinet, alto sax (Henry Cow, The Work, THE WATTS etc)
Chris Cutler: drums (Henry Cow, News from Babel, The Artaud Beats, THE WATTS etc)
HISTORY:
In 2013, soon after Lindsay Cooper passed away, Matthew Watkins made a call for arrangements of her mini-composition Slice for a special edition of his podcast ‘Canterbury Sans Frontières: Episode 8’. I made a transcription of the piece and recorded it for solo clavichord. Chris Cutler and I also played it in Japan and NY. A little later, inspired by the three memorial concerts Chris Cutler organised in 2014 with the original bands, I put Half the Sky together to play Lindsay’s music in Japan. The gender split follows Lindsay’s general practice and the example of the original bands - Henry Cow (50% female) and News from Babel (75% female).
SOURCES:
With the exception of Slice, it was only after - and because of - the 2014 concerts that any working scores for the Henry Cow pieces became available, having been painstakingly assembled from Lindsay’s notebooks, original band-members’ surviving parts and careful analysis of the recordings. A handful of the News from Babel songs – none of which had ever been performed live – had already been reconstructed for the memorial concert by Zeena Parkins; the rest I had to work out from scratch – as well as rearranging everything for a mixture of occidental and oriental instruments. This programme is approached very much as a music of the present - and not as an academic reconstruction. (YH)
‘Women hold up half the sky’ Mao Tse Tung
photos and audio/video recordings policy for Half the Sky Performances
Members of
audience are allowed to take photos and make audio/video
recordings as long as they:
-don't use flash and make any shutter sound
-don't cause any disturbances for other members of audience
(i.e., no standing and walking around)
-give us raw data immediately and allow us to use the data
whatever we like for no charges
-don't sell
-if they want to upload on the internet, they must let us
know and if we don't like, they must take them down
Half the Sky performance on 22 June 2018 was supported by Lottery grant award and Arts Council England
Half the Sky have aslo been supported by: The
Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Arts Council Tokyo.
