 London’s Riot Ensemble present works by four of the most important composers in contemporary music today—Chaya Czernowin, Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders, and Anna Thorvaldsdótr—alongside rising star Mirela Ivicevic, who was commissioned as part of the ensemble’s 2017 Call for Scores. Four of the works are recorded here for the first time. Inspired by the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi, Liza Lim’s violin concerto Speak, Be Silent, featuring American violinist Sarah Saviet as soloist, explores ideas of union and connecton, as well as the ecstasy that comes at moments of change or transiton. The atmospheric Ró —the Icelandic word for serenity—by Anna Thorvaldsdótr is a piece of quiet but threatening moods that eventually comes to convey a fragile sense of identty and wholeness. In stark contrast, Mirela Ivicevic ’s Baby Magnify/Lilith’s New Toy features the capricious demon and seductress Lilith experimentng her way through a series of alchemical transformatons. Raw sonic materials come to the fore once more in Chaya Czernowin ’s Ayre ... , a study in forms of instrumental resistance, fricton, and flow. Despite its ttle, it is not a song in any conventonal sense but is instead a bare impression of musical line, extended, elongated, and unadorned. Finally, Rebecca Saunders ’ Strrings Stll II contnues a longstanding fascinaton with the writngs of Samuel Becket, sharing its ttle with Becket’s final work of prose. Through its fragile and hauntng soundworld, the piece’s britle textures and distant keening explore minute musical actvites on the edge of extncton. Riot Ensemble is one of the UK’s most ambitous new music ensembles. With an Artstc Board of 20 members and a wide network of performers, curators, commissioners, and collaborators, Riot Ensemble are dedicated to creatng and producing a diverse array of projects in the UK and Europe. They are partcularly actve in bringing emerging internatonal voices into the Britsh new-music scene, and since 2012 have given 184 world and UK premieres by composers from more than thirty countries. An annual call for scores has resulted in almost twenty commissions. Riot Ensemble has performed at hcmf// (UK), Dark Music Days (Iceland), Tampere Biennale (Finland), Nordic Music Days (Sweden), Spitalfields Music Festval (UK), and Música en Segura (Spain).
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