NAWR Aberystwyth - Chris Cundy and Ashley John Long

Tuesday, November 12, 2024 - 19:30
Bank Vault Aberystwyth
1 New Street, Aberystwyth, SY23 2AT
Free entry
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Chris Cundy (Bass Clarinet) and Ashley John Long (Double Bass)
Two outstanding soloists (and maybe a bit of collaboration)
Chris Cundy ...
is touring his new solo album of bass clarinet music "OF ALL THE COMMON FLOWERS"
Following 2016’s The Disruptive Forest (Confront) and 2020’s Mountains (Aural Terrains), Of All The Common Flowers represents Chris Cundy’s third album of solo unaccompanied bass clarinet music. Sitting somewhere between a modern folk vernacular and contemporary classical, the album is made up of over a dozen rhythmic motifs and improvisational sketches
which offer meditations on wild flowers, their critical habitats and peripheral landscapes.
Hearing the instrument on its own like this gives away an inner sonority from deep tonalities to moments of ecstatic free playing.
“Swirling around the songs was bass clarinet player Chris Cundy, like a birdsong interrupting an argument” LOS ANGELES TIMES.
“It’s almost as if Chris Cundy is raising the dead when he hits bone rattling low notes on the bass clarinet” MASS FREQUENCY.
https://youtu.be/_7rXBOes0zI
Ashley John Long
No stranger to the Bank Vault, Ashley's exceptional virtuosic talents promise another evening of astonishment. He has extended the instrument well beyond anyone's expectations and always delivers originality combined with a hypersensitive musicality.
He has performed and recorded internationally with some of the UK's leading Jazz musicians, as well as accompanying visiting international artists, whilst his work as a soloist has seen the premiers of numerous new works for solo bass. He toured in 2008 with French double bassist Louis-Michel Marion in a series of recitals featuring music by Xenakis, Bussotti, Scelsi and Barry Guy. Over 20 composers have written new works for him and has had performances broadcast on television and radio throughout the U.K and Europe.
A virtuoso improviser, Ash has developed a unique approach to the instrument, creating innovative new performance techniques including methods of preparing the bass and performed and recorded with some of the genre's leading players and released a solo disc Psi on FMR in 2017.