A photo of Elaine Mitchener performing. Elaine stands in a grand-looking auditorium or church, with her arms held high as she conducts music.
Talk
Somerset House Studios

Elaine Mitchener: What's The Score?

Thu 28 Oct 2021
18.45 - 20.30
In person £8

This in person event will also be streamed live from Somerset House. If you are unable to join us on the evening, a recording will be archived and available to view via a ticketed link. 

Lancaster Rooms, New Wing
& Online

Elaine Mitchener discusses radical approaches to creating and interpreting musical scores

In this talk, Elaine Mitchener explores diverse approaches to writing and using performance scores without the use of traditional western musical notation, from text and graphic scores, to techniques drawn from performance art and physical theatre.

The talk will touch upon the approaches and practices of artists including Alison Knowles, Katalin Ladik, Ben Patterson, Jeanne Lee, Isidore Isou and others, and will include examples and performances of the works and techniques discussed, showing how they can unlock individual creativity and organise and direct group activity. It will be followed by a Q&A session. 

About Elaine Mitchener

Elaine Mitchener is a contemporary vocalist, movement artist and composer working between the worlds of experimental music, improvisation, physical theatre, performance and visual art. She has produced a number of multidisciplinary performance pieces which explore histories of colonialism, including Sweet Tooth and the then + the now = nowtime.

Some of the artists she has collaborated with include Moor Mother, Christian Marclay, The Otolith Group, Tansy Davies, Van Huynh Company, Apartment House, David Toop, London Sinfonietta, and Ensemble Manufaktur für Aktuelle Musik. She is the founder of the collective electroacoustic trio The Rolling Calf (with Jason Yarde and Neil Charles) and her soundworks are held by the Darmstadt festival in a collection curated by George E Lewis.

Recent recordings include Black Top’s Some Good News with Hamid Drake, William Parker, Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas (OTOROKU), and an online radio work commissioned by the French Sons d’Hiver festival. Mitchener is an Associate Artist at London’s Wigmore Hall. Her audiovisual installation [NAMES II] an evocation is currently on show as part of the British Art Show 9 touring exhibition. 

Header image by Pier Corona.