Half the Sky tours
Donation protected
We were formed in 2015 to play Lindsay Cooper's music. We have been receiving some public funding from time to time, but we don't have enough money to go and perform all the places where fans want to see us as public funding tends to have geographical limitation of activities they support. Also, as you see, it is very expensive for us to travel with so much instruments to carry around including Japanese koto for which we almost always have to pay extra. So we need your help!
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! etc)
Miwazow: koto, ching-dong percussion, voice (CICALA-MVTA)
Chlöe Herington: bassoon, soprano sax, melodica (Knifeworld, Chrome Hoof, VÄLVĒ)
Dagmar Krause: voice (Henry Cow, News from Babel, Slapp Happy etc)
Wataru Okhuma: alto sax, clarinet (CICALA-MVTA)
Nasuno Mitsuru: bass (Korekyojinn, Altered States etc)
Chris Cutler: drums (Henry Cow, News from Babel, The Artaud Beats 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
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! etc)
Miwazow: koto, ching-dong percussion, voice (CICALA-MVTA)
Chlöe Herington: bassoon, soprano sax, melodica (Knifeworld, Chrome Hoof, VÄLVĒ)
Dagmar Krause: voice (Henry Cow, News from Babel, Slapp Happy etc)
Wataru Okhuma: alto sax, clarinet (CICALA-MVTA)
Nasuno Mitsuru: bass (Korekyojinn, Altered States etc)
Chris Cutler: drums (Henry Cow, News from Babel, The Artaud Beats 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
Organizer
Yumi Hara
Organizer
