14th October 20:00pm – AME concert withYoko Ikeda, Wakana Ikeda, Charlie Collins, Derek Saw, Beatrix Ward-Fernandez, Ryoko Akamaat Access Space, Sheffield

The first North England tour for Yoko and Wakana presented by AME.
door donation £5

We’re very happy to be able to present at Access Space the international quartet of Yoko Ikeda, Ryoko Akama, Wakana Ikeda, and Charlie Collins – part of a short UK tour they are embarking on with composer/performer Lo Wie.

The evening will consist of a series of ad-hoc groupings, from duo to full sextet. A number of the performances will use unconventional scores, which aim to explore the relationship between text and sound, while other pieces will be freely improvised by the performers.

YOKO IKEDA violin
RYOKO AKAMA electronics & objects
WAKANA IKEDA flute
CHARLIE COLLINS waterphone & metal
with
BEATRIX WARD-FERNANDEZ theremin
DEREK SAW tuba & electronics

YOKO IKEDA is a violin/viola player who explores the musical freedoms within improvisation and experimental music. She has recently joined Suidobashi Chember Ensemble, alongside Wakana Ikeda, Taku Sugimoto and others, which performs experimental works by contemporary composers.

WAKANA IKEDA is a flautist who works with a variety of musics, from classical, rock, folk, and free jazz, to improvisation. She graduated from Toho Gakuen School of Music University, supervised by Ryu Noguchi, Masahiro Arita and Yuji Numano. Having performed and released CDs internationally, she has now co-founded Suidobashi Chamber Ensemble with Yoko Ikeda, Masahiko Okura, Taku Sugimoto, Aya Naito and Wakana Ikeda in order to perform contemporary scores, including Wandelweiser music.

RYOKO AKAMA is a UK-based composer and performer whose work, ranging from text compositions to sound installations, pursues minimal, reductive, cumulative, and contemplative experiences. She directs the melange edition label and is co-editor of the independent publisher mumei. http://www.ryokoakama.com/

CHARLIE COLLINS is a creative percussionist, free polyrhythmic drummer, and sound artist, based in the UK. His early recordings for cult labels Industrial, Fetish and Doublevision were followed by collaborations with many of the pioneers of free improvisation, while his interest in East Asian percussion and rhythm technique is evident in current work with komungo player Eun-Jung Kim, pianist Yoko Miura, and visual artist Bongsu Park. He is one of a handful of musicians to have played both Derek Bailey’s Company Week and Top Of The Pops.

BEATRIX WARD-FERNANDEZ trained as a violinist, but interest in experimental and improvised music led to her adoption of the theremin, and in developing new techniques to meet the demands of these musics. Her trio has performed at the international theremin symposium “Hands Off”, while her audio installation, “Castillo de Luna “ (for theremin & waterphone) was exhibited at the AC Institute in New York. Her music has been released on Discus, Found Property, Singing Knives, and Classwar Karaoke.

DEREK SAW has played improvised and experimental music across every genre over four decades, and is one of the founding figures of free improvisation in Sheffield. Originally a woodwind player he has played trumpet and flugelhorn for the past 25 years, while his bass tuba playing, aided at times with electronics, seeks to raise the profile of this unsung hero of the brass family within contemporary music.