Followed by a conversation with Loré Lixenberg, Audrey Chen, Elaine Mitchener & Esi Eshun 

Loré Lixenberg is an opera maker and mezzo soprano. Having studied composition with Woolrich, Vores and Saxton, masterclasses with Peter Maxwell Davies, and having gone on to study singing with  Powell, Mason, Isepp and Vishnevskaya she went on to apply bel canto singing  physical theatre, comedy and free improv with Simon Munnery, Richard  Thomas, Stewart Lee, Complicite & Simon McBurney . She has performed  internationally on concert platforms and galleries, opera houses and companies (Danish Royal opera, ROH, Bayreuth, Narional Theatre etc..) developed and performed in 'Jerry Springer the Opera' on London’s West End, and  has collaborated on experimental installations and vocal performances with visual and sound artists Stelarc, Bruce Mclean, ORLAN, Gette, Georgina Starr, Imogen Sidworthy and David Toop.  Collaborations also with institutions such as The Wellcome Foundation, The  Natural History Museum London,  (performances of Bird) Science Museum London. Also Performed the works of composers such as  Aperghis, Burrell, Beat, Howard, Baukholt, Oehring, Osborn, Turnage, Power, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Furrer, Birtwistle, Earle Brown, Ferrari, Barry, Oliveros, Acquaviva, Niblock, Dufour, Fujikura, Hind, Rønshold, among others,  performing with many ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Rechereche, SWDR, BCMG, BBCSO, LSO, London Philharmonic, Swedish+Danish+Japan Radio Orchestras..etc etc.. in contemporary music festivals worldwide.  She has made numerous experimental comedy opera series for BBC2 and Channel 4  such as  'FTRTV' ‘The Kombat Operas’ and ‘Attention Scum’, also Strings Bows and  Bellows with Joanna Macgregor.

Audrey Chen is a 2nd generation Chinese/Taiwanese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic.    

Since then, using the voice, cello and analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised, is completely un-processed and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of an analog synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language.  

For nearly two decades, her predominant focus has been her solo work with the voice, cello and electronics, but she has more recently, in the last four years, begun to shift back towards the exploration of the voice as a primary instrument.  

Esi Eshun is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and writer who works primarily with text, poetry, sound, voice, performance, archives, and still and moving images. Her work frequently centres on the intersection between environmental disturbances, imperial histories and their human and non human consequences, while attempting to redress perceived differences between Western and non-Western knowledge systems. Although grounded in rigorous research, her work experiments with speculative narrative forms, notions of auto-theory and performative approaches to documentary making.    

She has worked in association with practitioners including Brandon LaBelle, The Otolith Group, Elaine Mitchener and June Givanni of the Pan African Film Archive, while also taking part in improvised participative performances alongside Streetwise Opera. Her work has featured at institutions including Tate Britain, Berlin Berlinale, Southbank Centre, Talinn Art Hall, Estonia, Hess Gallery, Canada, Maritime Museum, UK, Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, Radio Space Borealis, Bergen, Norway, and Resonance FM among others. She is currently a lecturer at Central Saint Martins and has written on cinema, art and music for publications including The Wire, Sight & Sound, New Internationalist magazine and Wigmore Hall publishing.