Mexico’s Cervantino Festival at the Teatro Juárez plays host to the Mexican debut of Tansy Davies’ inside out 2 from the London Sinfonietta and Jonathan Berman on 11 October. The work for chamber ensemble of 7 players appears alongside of Mexican composers Arturo Fuentes, Julián Carrillo, Gabriela Ortiz and Silvestre Revueltas.
The 6-minute work has a dark-hued palette, scored for bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, piano prepared with paper between dampers and strings, violin, viola, and cello. Davies weaves short, brittle sonorities and more sustained softer ones into a tapestry of broken patterns, cycles, and grooves, which all move at slightly different speeds – in this respect it is an ideal complement to the superimposed, jagged mechanisms of Birtwistle and Nancarrow, who also feature in the Sinfonietta’s programme.
London Sinfonietta gave the Swedish premiere of inside out 2 with Ben Gernon in Malmö in 2012; it was commissioned and premiered by Bergamo Ensemble and Michael Downes in 2003 at the Sounds New Festival, Canterbury. It was recorded by Azalea Ensemble as part of the 2012 Troubairitz album. The Sinfonietta, consistent champions of Davies' work, includede her Iris for soprano saxophone and chamber ensemble as part of the 'Decades' celebration concert in February 2024.
The work has appeared with Ensemble 10:10 in Liverpool, the Eastman School Ensemble with Brad Lubman, and Ulysses Ensemble with Geoffrey Paterson. In 2016 it was choreographed as part of the Rambert Elements National Showcase by schoolchildren drawing on a toolkit created by Aletta Collins and presented at the Peacock Theatre.
On 30 October a new ensemble work from Davies makes its debut at Aberdeen Sound Festival. Lost Science, commissioned by Red Note Ensemble, sound, Crash Ensemble and Ensemble Offspring, is a 23-minute work for flute, clarinet, percussion, violin, viola, cello and electronics – “an imaginary journey into the Earth’s interior”, Davies says.