Byron Wallen at Jazzlive at The Crypt

********Special COVID-19 entry requirements are in place at this venue, please read our website before booking********
A true innovator, who never tires of new challenges and new thinking, Byron Wallen is a legend of the UK music family.
Tonight Byron brings a new work to the crypt. Back in 2019 Filthy Lucre commissioned him to write music for 8 musicians responding to Peter Shenai?s "Hurricane Bells". Peter is a contemporary artist who has cast 5 bells, whose shapes are modelled on the structure of Hurricane Katrina? the storm that devastated New Orleans in 2005. These cyclonic, irregularly shaped bells produce a tonally complex web of sounds reminiscent of Chinese bells and gongs. Originally commissioned for an octet, it was set to premier in 2020 but couldn?t be performed as planned due to the pandemic. ...

read more

********Special COVID-19 entry requirements are in place at this venue, please read our website before booking********
A true innovator, who never tires of new challenges and new thinking, Byron Wallen is a legend of the UK music family.
Tonight Byron brings a new work to the crypt. Back in 2019 Filthy Lucre commissioned him to write music for 8 musicians responding to Peter Shenai?s "Hurricane Bells". Peter is a contemporary artist who has cast 5 bells, whose shapes are modelled on the structure of Hurricane Katrina? the storm that devastated New Orleans in 2005. These cyclonic, irregularly shaped bells produce a tonally complex web of sounds reminiscent of Chinese bells and gongs. Originally commissioned for an octet, it was set to premier in 2020 but couldn?t be performed as planned due to the pandemic.
The date for the full premier is to be rescheduled, but in the meantime Byron accepted the opportunity to present the nucleus of the work in this one-off performance at The Crypt.
Hurricane bells (Remember Katrina) features:-
Dan Kemshell - guitar
Menelik Claffey - bass
Zoe Pascall- drums
and Byron Wallen - trumpet, piano and bells
Of this project Byron says: "Gong instruments in general, have this amazing political and communicative power: they memorialise, they mark celebrations, they sound alarms, they call communities to gather around important issues. These bells based on the structure of Hurricane Katrina carry a powerful message and a set of meanings with them.
My piece is an exploration of  the socio-political economic climate where their sound resonates. The reason "Hurricane Katrina" incurred such a huge loss of life and destruction was not because of the winds, but because of the subsequent flooding, due to insufficient levy infrastructure and the pathetic response of the US federal government.?
A BBC clip about the artist and his bells and Byron's contribution is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OwWByo1-g8

show less