KIMA - Music like you’ve never seen before

About

With special guests:

Claire M Singer - Organ
Joby Burgess – Percussion (Powerplant)
Estela Merlos - Dance
Laura Moody – Cello (Elysian Quartet)
Robert Ames- Viola (LCO)
Emily Burn – Voice (Voice)

Music for your eyes and ears. Based on a natural phenomena, brought to life using leading technology - KIMA paints music in light on the incredible architecture of the Union Chapel. In collaboration with contemporary music’s foremost talents, Analema Group and the Organ Project present a unique audio-visual performance, centred around the Henry Willis Organ (1877). KIMA at the Union Chapel offers an entirely new way to experience music.

KIMA - ‘wave’ in ancient Greek - interprets music as interplay of light and form, an artistic quest for a new reading of music. The project enables collaborative participation in the process of music making and listening, investigating visual properties of sound.

The project is unique in creating an experience for both musicians and audience alike to feel and see music, to learn about its inner relationship through visual geometric patterns. Claire M. Singer, Joby Burgess, Laura Moody, Robert Ames & Emily Burn explore visual representations of music in Analema Group’s new creation centred around the Henry Willis Organ.

KIMA is a multi-layered, real-time, interactive art piece - based on mathematical equations derived from the physical world around us. Analema Group builds on early sound representation experiments by Skriabin, Kandinsky, Fischinger, Whitney, and other artists - creating a visual exploration of sound as a synaesthetic and physical phenomenon. In collaboration between visual and performing artists, we explore how motion, sound, symmetry and colour interact.

The evening features three improvisations of the organ in collaboration with percussion, dance, viola, cello and voice, performed by outstanding contemporary musicians and a dancer. KIMA questions relationship between music and visual form, movement and structure, colour and light. Union Chapel’s unique carved ceiling becomes a canvas for patterns and colour as properties of sound - transforming each performance into an immersive, multi-sensory experience.

KIMA has been published in Leonardo Journal, SIGGRAPH, EVA Conference and presented at Kinetica Art Fair, Watermans Centre and the International Youth Arts Festival at Kingston.

The Union Chapel Organ Project, Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England, Hawthorn, CDE, Incloodu, and London Contemporary Orchestra support the event.

Analema Group

Analema Group is a London based arts collective, a group of artists, researchers, programmers and sound designers. Analema Group acts as a single voice, on the principle of synergy. Analema Group’s core team consists of Evgenia Emets (Artistic Director), Oliver Gingrich (Producer) and Alain Renaud (Sound Designer). Enriched by Marcel Schwittlick and Jackson Taylor, Analema Group aims to create new experiences on the intersection between art and technology.

Analema Group’s mission is to reflect on the nature of perceptual phenomena, exploring the relationships between sound, colour, light, movement and form. Analema Group presents participatory art and music filling the gap between performers and audiences. Developing an art of the future, Analema Group sends participants on a journey, enabling them to go deeper, questioning our senses, touching the boundaries of perception.

Evgenia Emets - Artistic Director

Oliver Gingrich - Producer

Alain Renaud - Sound Design

Marcel Schwittlick - Visualisation

Jackson Tayler - Mapping

Web: www.analemagroup.com

Email: analema.group@gmail.com

FB: Analema Group

The Henry Willis Organ and the Union Chapel Organ Project

Union Chapel is a Grade I listed building and a stunning example of Victorian Gothic architecture. The unusual octagonally shaped chapel was designed by James Cubitt and dedicated in December 1877. A few weeks later the new organ was inaugurated. Designed and built especially for this space by master organ builder Henry “Father” Willis, the Chapel’s organ is generally recognised as a world-class instrument and its role at the heart of the Chapel was widely celebrated. However over the years it gradually declined and became unreliable. Fortunately, with the support of a generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the organ was fully repaired and restored in 2012-13 by Durham organ builders Harrison & Harrison and The Union Chapel Organ Project was launched.

The aim of The Organ Project is to make our Henry Willis Organ more accessible to our local community and beyond - through arts, music and education. Our goal is not only to honour the legacy of this very special instrument by keeping up a regular organ recital diary, but also to programme concerts right across the genre pool, breathing fresh life into the organ by having it performed in styles which have never previously been attempted on a mechanical organ. These concerts continue to demonstrate how versatile the organ can be and that it is not simply a church instrument, but in fact the world's first synthesizer which can be incorporated into most genres of music. This versatility is also reflected in our education strand for adults and children, which provides an opportunity for people to learn about the organ through their chosen art form.

Music Director – Claire Singer

Project Administrator – Janet Gilbert

organproject@unionchapel.org.uk

Union Chapel, Compton Terrace N1 2UN