Press Release - Andrew Poppy's Staining Ensemble

PRESS RELEASE STAINING THE SILENCE... ANDREW POPPY’S SUSTAINING ENSEMBLE perform …and the Shuffle of Things live in London, Oxford and Birmingham “Bewitching, beautifully crafted and highly addictive” - THE WIRE “Gloriously abundant in cascading cycles of notes and noises” - THE GUARDIAN Composer/producer Andrew Poppy launches his new Sustaining Ensemble with rare live dates in London, Oxford and Birmingham, performing music from the acclaimed album, ‘…and the Shuffle of Things'. Poppy is an eclectic post modern artist whose music has been compared to Cabaret Voltaire and Philip Glass, Kraftwerk and John Cage, Underworld and John Adams. Moving between the studio and the concert hall, he treads a path between downtempo electronica and the minimalist classical works for orchestra that shot him to notoriety more than 20 year ago. The start of a new, ongoing live project, the Staining The Silence tour draws together various aspects of Poppy's previous live outings – from the BBC Concert Orchestra's performance of his work (alongside Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and John Tavener) at the Royal Festival Hall – to last year's solo mixture of spoken word, electronics, video and piano minimalism at the Chelsea Theatre, described by James Tilston as: “A remarkable collaboration between musical composition and visual impulses that needs to be experienced by as broad an audience as possible.” The Sustaining Ensemble features Kate Halsall (keyboards and piano), Andrew Poppy (piano, keyboards, bass guitar, voice), Jez Wiles (vibraphone and percussion), Genevieve Wilkins (marimba and cajon) and Julia Bardsley (video). Watch highlights of the Chelsea Theater performance at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG3-MEiV4Kw. 04 November 2009: Kings Place, London for London International Festival of Exploratory Music

www.kingsplace.co.uk www.lifem.org.uk

03 December 2009: The North Wall, Oxford for Oxford Contemporary Music

www.thenorthwall.com www.ocmevents.org

14 December 2009: Conservatoire, Birmingham for Frontiers Contemporary Music Series

conservatoire.bcu.ac.uk www.bcu.ac.uk/events/125

Media: Ian Peel @ Let It Beep | [email protected] | 07775 937494 | www.letitbeep.com | myspace.com/andrewpoppy

PRESS PHOTOS (credit: Henrik Knudsen)

Media: Ian Peel @ Let It Beep | [email protected] | 07775 937494 | www.letitbeep.com | myspace.com/andrewpoppy

PRESS REVIEWS “Poppy is a first rank composer, bursting with ideas... Time and space are suspended, as chiming, plunking and silk-smooth harmonies seem to progress forever upwards. Post-post-modern, ambient, slightly kitsch, minimal machine music.” Daily Telegraph "Impressively full of emotional shrapnel... The effect is one of animated hallucination on which Balthus and Francis Bacon might have collaborated: arrogant ascetic, utterly sincere.” The Sunday Times "A gripping and unusual evening....not a moment of it is dull and several sequences are startling.” The Sunday Express “Bewitching, beautifully crafted and highly addictive... Clouds of strings and electronics drift and repeat in a kind of bittersweet, melancholy ecstasy that plays some fascinating psychoacoustic games with time/space and stasis/movement.” The Wire "Of exceptional merit... A scenario of mixed gestures, solo melancholy and frantic deshabillement....” Financial Times “Consistently trenchant and telling... Composer Andrew Poppy is good with large forces, and with small, intense ensembles such as piano solos and duos.... Give this man a big orchestral commission, now! “ The Guardian "Poppy was never solely concerned with pure minimalism and he has now developed a style of enviable flexibility, fusing a range of so called 'serious' and 'popular' sources and allowing each to emerge as appropriate.” The Times "The missing link between Beethoven and Lou Reed." Paul Morley “Poppy demonstrates an uncanny talent for spreading short melodic motifs over long distances without causing the mind to wander, using subtle development and barely detectable changes in orchestration...” Music OMH.com Media: Ian Peel @ Let It Beep | [email protected] | 07775 937494 | www.letitbeep.com | myspace.com/andrewpoppy