Full Programme Announced for Imogen Heap's REVERB at the Roundhouse

Bloomberg Summer at the Roundhouse, an annual partnership dedicated to introducing new audiences to innovative culture, returns for the third year running with Imogen Heap's Reverb, a festival that this year aims to bring cutting-edge contemporary music to a wide range of new audiences by redefining the rules and shattering boundaries. Featuring an exclusive first performance of Imogen's long-awaited fourth album,Sparks, the weekend will include live performances from musical innovators such as Arve Henriksen, the Århus Sinfonietta, Holly Melia, Leafcutter John, Leon Michener, London Contemporary Orchestra, London Soundpainting Orchestra, Maja Ratjke, Nick Ryan, Nonclassical DJs, Pekka Kuusisto, Peter Gregson, Plaid, Powerplant, Simon Steen-Andersen, The Norwegian Girls' Choir and Tim Exile.

For the whole month of August Imogen Heap's Giant Interactive Sonic Playground will feature inspiring sound installations and talking machines throughout the Roundhouse. Chosen by Imogen herself, the installations will be available for all visitors to explore and interact with for free. Reverb will also involve performances, contributions and close collaboration with participants from the Roundhouse's creative programme for 11-25 year-olds including the Bloomberg broadcast trainees, who will be involved in live streaming content.

Bloomberg's support of Summer at the Roundhouse further extends a joint commitment to innovation, access and new technologies in the arts. The programme of work in this year's Reverb festival is designed to bring musical innovators to a wider audience and let them step into Imogen Heap's box of musical curiosities, experiencing a range of pioneering performers' work.

BLOOMBERG SUMMER AT THE ROUNDHOUSE

IMOGEN HEAP'S GIANT INTERACTIVE SONIC PLAYGROUND

When Throughout August
Tickets Free
For the whole month of August a selection of incredible sound installations, chosen by Imogen, will be positioned throughout the Roundhouse for everyone to discover, interact with and be inspired by. These include:

Arboreal Lightning
Arboreal Lightning is a series of LED-strip fibres that will burst from the stage and soar above the performers, luminously reacting to sounds and gestures. The 'branches' will arch along the Roundhouse structure, a few bowing down into the audience, rewarding participatory interaction.

Imogen Heap's Listening Chair
Share your secrets with Imogen by taking a seat inside her Listening Chair, where she will guide you through the experience and encourage you to share your innermost thoughts and feelings. Selected secrets will then be whispered by the Arboreal Lightning tree to random members of the audience (confidentially of course!).

Di Mainstone's 'Human Harp'
Have you ever noticed how suspension bridges look like giant harps? Artist Di Mainstone had this realisation on the Brooklyn Bridge, where she imagined a clip-on sound interface that might enable pedestrians to 'play the bridge' as though it were an instrument. Di now brings theHuman Harp to the Roundhouse, enabling the audience to play the building.

Kathy Hinde: Tipping Point Installation
Tipping Point explores the sonic complexities and possibilities of combining glass vessels with shifting water levels. Sound tones are produced live via a microphone that feeds back inside each glass vessel. As the water levels change, the feedback is tuned to different pitches based on the resonant frequency of the remaining space in each glass vessel. This work forms both a sound sculpture and the basis of a live performance.

Felix's Machines Triptych (21 - 24 August only)
These attention-seeking music machines perform rhythmic loops and demonstrate the effect the presence of a listener has on them by playing fastest when viewed up close and slowest when nobody is nearby.

Helmholtz by Wintour's Leap
Changing patterns of light and shadow give the sense of being immersed in a space sensitive to sound where even a whisper causes this lattice of LED elements to stir, and loud claps invoke waves of light cascading across the room.

Musicjelly (21 - 24 August only)
Mix & match all the improvising musicians, percussive dancers, vocalists and everyday noises Musicjelly has collected to compose your own musical adventure using interactive touch-screens and ambient projections whilst discovering what's behind each sound.

PERFORMANCE: BLACKBOX EXPLORATIONS

When Thursday 21 August - 6pm
Tickets £25-£35
Reverb begins with an evening of immersive live visuals accompanied by cutting-edge, contemporary artists including Berlin-based composerSimon Steen-Andersen's innovative BlackBox performed by Denmark's premier new music ensemble the Århus Sinfonietta. It will feature a Q&A session with Imogen Heap and a number of artists performing throughout the weekend, giving audiences an opportunity to get inside the minds of some of the most creative and thought-provoking musicians. Plaid will also perform new work due out for release later this year on Warp Records, followed by a performance from cutting-edge improviser's orchestra The London Soundpainting Orchestra.

WORKSHOP: THE GLOVES
When Friday 22 & Saturday 23 August - 2pm-4pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets Free
A rare and unique opportunity to try out Imogen Heap's mi.mu glove system. Book your 30 minute slot to experience playing music in 3-D, wirelessly using gestures and movement with your hands. Dip into the sounds and rhythms of Imogen's first glove song Me The Machine, taken from her forthcoming new album Sparks. The Gloves are a cutting edge perimental gestural music ware being developed for the purpose of Imogen's studio and stage work.

TALK: PETER GREGSON
When Friday 22 August - 4pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets Free
Cellist and composer Peter Gregson will discuss his work in generative technology and performance - how the future looks, bringing app developers, composers and performers closer together and lightening everybody's suitcase of wires, cables and boxes.

TALK: ADAM STARK
When Friday 22 August - 5pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets Free
Computer scientist, musician and researcher Adam Stark discusses how new ideas in engineering and computer science research labs are making their way into the work of performing artists and musicians.

WORKSHOP: ARDUINO KEYBOARD
When Friday 22 August - 5.30pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets £10
Create your own digital instrument using open source software to create a physical interface that triggers sound using touch. You'll learn the principles of physical computing and sound design and will be able to take the finished project home with you.

TALK: NICK RYAN SYNAESTHESIA - THE COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS (TALK)
When Saturday 23 August - 5pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets Free
This Q&A with multi-award winning composer Nick Ryan, will explore the compositional process of his Synaesthesia project, which uses unique computational software devised into a live score.

WORKSHOP: SONIC MASKS
When Saturday 23 August - 5.30pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets £10
Using Arduino, in this colourful, fun family workshop, you will create wearable masks that connect with a computer, allowing sounds and images to be triggered by touching parts of the mask.

SHOWCASE: TECH PROJECTS
When Saturday 23 August - 4pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets £3
A group of young creatives aged 11-19 have been busy developing instruments from scratch, integrating digital technologies to create a 'junk-tech percussion' ensemble and a 'wearable tech' collective. The group will showcase their new skills through their unique performance pieces.

PERFORMANCE: ONE-MAN BAND
When Friday 22 August - 6pm
Tickets £25
Our circular Main Space will be transformed to 6 performance podiums, each hosting one of 6 virtuoso pioneers of instrumental and electronic music, hand-picked by Imogen Heap, in their own space. See piano and vocal improvisation from Imogen Heap, cello and electronics fromPeter Gregson, violin and electronics from Pekka Kuusisto, trumpet and electronics from Arve Henriksen and vocal and electronics fromMaja S. K. Ratkje. Alexander Schubert will close the evening performing his post-rave electronica fantasy Lucky Dip with the Decoder Ensemble. Expect strobes and lots of noise!

PERFORMANCE: LONDON CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA
When Saturday 23 August - 6pm
Tickets £22.50 - £35
The London Contemporary Orchestra will perform an incredible programme of work including pieces by Howard Skempton, Delia Derbyshire, Edmund Finnis, and Kaija Saariaho.
In collaboration with ground-breaking visual artists Quayola & Sinigaglia, audiences will also experience a new commission by multi award-winning composer, sound designer, artist and audio specialist Nick Ryan that centres around the theme of 'synaesthesia'. This performance will give audiences the opportunity to experience the sound of the orchestra being transformed live into a dramatic visual score through computational software developed for the piece. Leon Michener will open the evening with Klavikon, which reimagines electronic music without the use of conventional processes - no loops, no laptops, no sequencers. Instead Leon augments the 88 keys of the piano with his own inventions and objects such as a robot dog or 80s M.U.S.C.L.E men figurines, delivering cascading batteries of percussion and abstract soundscapes. There will also be a special guest performance from the Norwegian Girls' Choir who will perform the UK premier of Ro-Uro. Written by composer Maja S. K. Ratkje, the piece focuses on war, peace, order and chaos through a collage of historic material and traditional Norwegian folk music and lullabies. Finally, the evening will close with a new exclusive reworking of Natures - originally commissioned by Aldeburgh Music's Faster than Sound - by Mira Calix, Oliver Coates and Quayola.

Full programme:
Delia Derbyshire The Delian Mode
Howard Skempton Lento
Nick Ryan Synaesthesia (world premiere, Roundhouse commission)
Edmund Finnis Between Rain (world premiere, LCO commission)
Kaija Saariaho Verblendungen
Hugh Brunt (conductor)

PERFORMANCE: IMOGEN HEAP
When Sunday 24 August - 7pm
Tickets £30-£35
Reverb culminates with the very first performance of Grammy and Ivor Novello award-winning Imogen Heap's fourth album Sparks. This will be the only opportunity to see Imogen perform the album live in 2014, alongside performances of old favourites, including Hide and Seek. The evening will finish with audio maverick, technical genius and boundary-pushing performer Tim Exile, who will perform a special one-off collaboration with the Roundhouse Choir.

DJ SET: NONCLASSICAL
When Sunday 24 August - from 2pm
Tickets Free
On a mission to redefine the classical experience and take a new wave of exciting composers out of the concert hall to new audiences, the seminal Nonclassical was founded by composer, DJ & producer Gabriel Prokofiev. Currently in its 10th year of championing bold new music in adventurous ways, Nonclassical DJs will be spinning the most stimulating new sounds in experimental, electronica, and contemporary classical music with remixes from the Nonclassical label and live remixed works by Stockhausen and Reich. Dynamic flautist Holly Melia(from the Tempest Flute Trio) will perform iconic contemporary works that redefine the rhythmic and aural contours of the flute.

PERFORMANCE: POWERPLANT PLAYS WILL GREGORY
When Sunday 24 August - 5pm & 6pm - suitable for all ages
Tickets Free
Led by Joby Burgess, percussionist, sound and video trio Powerplant will take to the stage with the first London performance of a new commission by Goldfrapp's Will Gregory. Minimalism and electronic will collide through these performances which are part of Nonclassical's curated club event.

To post a comment, you must register and login.