Breathe in Me

A performance of new music and improv with pianist Kate Halsall, from her 2021 album release, Breathe in Me. Music for piano and harmoniums by Ailís Ní Ríain, Fumiko Miyachi, Diana Salazar and Rose Dodd, alongside some very special guests, electronic artist and producer Dextro (aka Ewan MacKenzie) and composer/performer and improviser Faye MacCalman.

Dextro is the work of Scottish musician and producer Ewan Mackenzie, released through Border Community (Nathan Fake/James Holden), Grönland Records (Neu!/Harmonia), A Strangely Isolated Place (Arovane/36), Inverted Grim Mill Recordings, and through his own imprint, 16k Records. Dextro has been performed live alongside artists such as Loscil, Adam Betts, Nathan Fake and Amon Tobin, where live percussion, guitar and synth drones interchange to create what commentators have described as a journey ‘akin to climbing and descending from a mountain’ (Muzik Dizcovery).

https://www.dextro.co.uk/

Faye MacCalman is a performer, composer-songwriter and improviser on saxophone, clarinet and voice. Freewheeling through genre boundaries inspired by jazz, blues-folk, minimalism and rock to name a few, Faye fuses experimental songwriting with off kilter patterns, heartfelt melodies and surreal atmospheres.

Currently Faye is creating a new AV installation called ‘Invisible, Real’ as part of the Jerwood Jazz Encounters Fellowship for Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2022 combining anonymously collected real life experiences of mental illness with floating projections, sound art and live solo performance.

‘Providing food for thought on what jazz is and can become’ - Kevin Le Gendre

https://www.fayemaccalman.com/

Kate Halsall performs and commissions new music for piano and other keyboard instruments. Her solo performances often combine old/new music with improvised elements and electronics written for her by composers including Pippa Murphy, Fumiko Miyachi, Leo Chadburn and Rose Dodd among many others. She has released music on several labels including on Birmingham Record Label & NMC Recordings with her piano duo Cobalt, and Miniaturised Concertos | Maché, her album of new works and remixes for multiple pianos, electronics and ensemble released on Metier; and with Another Timbre, Antoine Beuger’s Ockeghem Octets.

Kate has performed at international festivals and series, including for Nonclassical, Blackheather Club and London International Festival of Exploratory Music; Cheltenham Festival, Belfast Book Festival, Marte festival Malaga, ICT + Art NEM Summit Nantes, Timezones festival Italy, The Barbican Centre (John Cage Uncaged), ICMC Onassis Cultural Centre Athens, ICU Rome, Peak Performances New Jersey; Sound Source London, Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music Belfast, Oxford Contemporary Music, and Sound Scotland.

“Tender and heroically controlled” Ockeghem Octets, Antoine Beuger. Kate Molleson, Guardian

“Intriguing” ‘2 Steep 4 Sheep [some hills are]’ by Ailís Ní Ríain, Breathe in Me, The Wire magazine, Spenser Tomson (May 2021)

“poetic loveliness” (Leo Chadburn’s Vapour Descriptors with Kate Halsall), Peter Margasak, Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical (April 2021)

https://katehalsall.co.uk/

Host or Publisher Kate Halsall