Bido Lito! Magazine | Issue 116 | August 2021

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REVIEWS Domingo Higuan (Brian Roberts) Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Online - 29/06 Liverpool Philharmonic’s end of June offering serves up an evening of ruthless neo-classicism from Stravinsky, Ravel and Prokofiev. Despite the conceptual strand throughout the programme being neo-classicism, by the end of the concert ‘contrast’ becomes the word to summarise the evening. But first, we delve straight into the deep end with the ominous and quirky brass chirpings of Stravinsky’s Octet. Within the scope of the evening, the piece marks itself as a more intense and agile take on the neoclassical tradition. However, the intense interplay of brass motifs beckoning the galactic presence of John Williams isn’t all that Stravinsky has to offer for the evening. For every wide and dense climactic section, come thinner and more intimate sections hinting at the sombre moments to come. This is largely owing to the impactful premiere of DANI HOWARD’S trombone concerto, which relentlessly alienates itself from the rest of the neo-classical musings, but by doing so it becomes the emotional peak of the evening. It achieves this by offering a three-movement depiction of the last 18 months we’ve all had to endure: Realisation, Rumination, and Illumination, Dani explains in an interview with conductor DOMINGO HINDOYAN, included in the on-demand package of the concert. Dani focuses purely on the psychological impact of isolation, with the reflective pool of rich sighing string motifs and PETER MOORE’s trombone calling each spectator to a personal memory from the past troubled year. The three movements outline a deeply personal journey for Dani, but its consistently vague and dreamy nature allows the composition to resonate with anyone who hears it. Like a symbolist piece, it makes the isolation of lockdown its object, a stroke of ambiguity that in turn encapsulates the emotional journey of every musician and concert goer enduring the tides of isolation. The ever-increasing intensity throughout each of the movements until the climactic close of the final movement, brilliantly displays the desire for release we’ve all been anticipating, and it’s only fitting we hear this piece now just as we might be getting it. This transitions nicely to the serene woodwind swirls that glide us into Ravel’s Le Tombeau De Couperin. This is a piece born out of its own darkened time, as each movement is dedicated to a friend of Ravel who died during the First World War. Despite being very much a part of the neo-classical tradition, in the context of the evening, the piece stands as a sibling to Howard’s trombone concerto, as side by side they are connected through their comparatively subtle approach and meditative effect. Such dreamy and reflective music could have risked drifting off into the deepest moments of lockdown isolation, but as Liverpool slowly but surely makes its way back to normal, the contrast between the resurfaced casual chaos of our everyday lives and the reflective music at the centre of the evening, starts to make its true impact and meaning realised. The meditative and calming effect takes us out of our stressful lives and brings us to a still and personal place that exists only within ourselves, and as the world continues to open up, the strength of such cathartic and introspective orchestral works will be further revealed. To complete the cycle of neo-classicism though, we find ourselves back in the deep end, with the grandiose finisher that is Prokofiev’s first symphony Classical. Short and sweet as symphonies go, but by maintaining the animated flourishes of orchestral interplay consistently throughout, the piece certainly puts a strong bow on the entire proceedings. We’re left then with the consistent theme of neo-classicism, strongly imprinted in the intro and outro, but with a core of comparatively pensive but cathartic orchestrations that effortlessly reflect the audience’s lockdown journey back at them. Luke Furlonger-Copeland Domingo Higuan (Brian Roberts) 48
Max Cooper Grand Central Hall – 03/07 Our eyes face forward. Two translucent vanilla canvases (one in front and one behind) stretch themselves wide. MAX COOPER is nested in between them, his head illuminated with laptop light. Darkened figures sit two by two on the marked fold-out seats around the hall of this former Methodist church. A gentle tide of ambience laps our solitary shores as cream and blue coloured air pockets bubble and merge across the screens. As images are traded between them, the projected light draws straight dimensions around Cooper’s desk enclosing him. The first round of applause: and now he’s hidden. Cooper has orbited around abstract themes for some time. His PhD in computational biology a blueprint for his approach to music: methodical and structured – personal experiments conducted onstage with AV apparatus. Patterns keep transforming over beats with an ancient sensibility, an Aphex-like detachment which soothes anticipation, and the screens unveil a stack of images dissolving to reveal the next. Masks unveil masks in a feedback loop or a microcosmic flow chart: a rabbit hole into Euclidian space and its haunting fractals. The beat spurs ahead. Each performance is designed to echo similarities with the others, more like vignettes from a series than chapters of a story. Now, riding the troughs and peaks, other faces look like they could be expecting a flare or switch up. As serene visuals float onscreen, pinballing pulses glide across a softer four on the floor beat. As it picks up there are claps of encouragement, but I’m fading out; what’s intentionally cyclical and repetitive is turning stale. Maybe I expected too much. What we get is a palette of sensory textures, a wider array of visual ones than sonic. The music grows from ambient landscapes to more driving, mechanical, first-person propulsions but both sides employ variations of formulae as they near their respective ends, not that this audience seems fazed. One member stands up to enjoy a solitary but spirited pogo (take your opportunities where you find them). An anthology tied together by ideas of the subliminal rhythms and patterns that occur across biology, mathematics, art and design; it culminates in one large cycle of movement. It’s an attempt to represent the simultaneously occurring movements and cycles that happen quicker than can be comprehended: death, rebirth, ageing and transformation. For fans, this is a great show – enough of them here have snatched a video for their memories – for the uninitiated though, it could turn tedious. But then... there are these scattered points of total harmony. Moments when the spectral sound echoing through the church chamber encircles you, ropes you back into the moment, emanating not from the speakers anymore but the hall itself; walls and objects harmonise as select frequencies find their place to sing. Was this planned? We’ll never know as our conductor-conduit vanishes under the last round of applause, leaving to draw more schematics of his universe. Samuel Lasley 30th September IAMKYAMI Seagoth Furry Hug Kazimier Stockroom FREE ENTRY FOR BIDO LITO! MEMBERS 3rd December SPQR Mondo Trasho Torture and the Desert Spiders Future Yard bidolito.co.uk/whats-on REVIEWS 49
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Page 3 and 4: “I was apprehensive about venturi
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Page 9 and 10: E D I T O R I A L This issue of Bid
Page 11 and 12: GIVE A HOOF FOR HISTORY The eager-e
Page 13 and 14: HOT PINK! Words: Richard Lewis, Mat
Page 15 and 16: Joseph Kojo is never far from a cha
Page 17 and 18: got me back where I started.” On
Page 19 and 20: DORCAS The creative all-rounder and
Page 21 and 22: one subject doesn’t get saturated
Page 23 and 24: offend anyone, but you just feel mu
Page 25 and 26: NATALIE AND THE MONARCHY Embracing
Page 27 and 28: affirmed that I wanted to be a part
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Page 31 and 32: McCLUSKEY And we went, ‘Phew, OK.
Page 33 and 34: liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ai #aimoret
Page 35 and 36: on, you know, a new laptop or whate
Page 37 and 38: DANCING TO ARCHITECTURE The sonosph
Page 39 and 40: JESSICA LUISE The introspective sto
Page 41 and 42: FESTIVAL FUTURE NOW 27-28/08 - Futu
Page 43 and 44: GIG Crack Cloud 26/08 - District Va
Page 45 and 46: Black Country, New Road (Lucy McLac
Page 47: Angel Field Festival Hope Universit
Page 52: ARTISTIC LICENCE This month’s cre
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Bido Lito! Magazine | Issue 116 | August 2021

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