Contemporary Composition Perspectives Series 14/11/2024
Date of Event: Thursday, 14th November 2024
For the next lecture in our Contemporary Composition Perspectives series we are delighted to welcome Dr Xenia Pestova Bennett. She will be discussing recent projects involving the Magnetic Resonator Piano, and demonstrating at the piano extended techniques from works by Annea Lockwood.
The lecture takes place in room EQ-111, East Quad, TU Dublin on Thursday November 14th 4pm-6pm.
All are welcome to attend! No booking required.
Dr Xenia Pestova Bennett
Pianist, composer and improviser Xenia Pestova Bennett has earned an international reputation as a leading proponent of uncompromising music. Her work spans a wide range of sound worlds, styles and genres from classical and contemporary art music to free improvisation, experimental electronica, multimedia and avant-pop.
Xenia has been featured at major international festivals and prestigious concert halls around the world including at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, National Concert Hall in Dublin, The Glasshouse Gateshead, Glasgow Royal Concert Halls, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Festival Archipel (Geneva), Approximation (Dusseldorf), Ars Musica (Brussels), Christchurch Arts Festival (New Zealand), Lanaudière (Canada), London Contemporary Music Festival, Musica (Strasbourg), New Music Dublin, Royal Albert Hall (London), Sonorities (Belfast), Spark (USA), Rainy Days (Luxembourg) and Voix Nouvelles Royaumont (France). She has also performed in a tropical rainforest, on a river ferry, deep inside cave systems and underground fortresses and while partially submerged in a pond.
Xenia’s commitment to contemporary music inspired her to commission dozens of new works and collaborate closely with major innovators including Annea Lockwood, Karlheinz Essl and Gayle Young as well as champion numerous new voices. As a composer, Xenia is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland. Her ten studio albums to date include widely acclaimed recordings of core piano duo works by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen with Pascal Meyer for Naxos Records, collaborations with singer-songwriter Roxanne De Bastion and guitarist / producer Simon Tong (“The Piano Player of Budapest”), a collection of premiere recordings “Shadow Piano” for piano, toy piano and electronics (a “terrific album of dark, probing music”, Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader), complete piano works by Gayle Young hailed as "a triumph" (John Eyles, All About Jazz), and "Gold.Berg.Werk", a reimagining of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations by Karlheinz Essl described as "a sci-fi journey in the direction of 1741” (Luke Clancy, RTE Lyric FM).
Xenia's own compositions are available on Diatribe Records and TakuRoku. Her album "Atomic Legacies" features Ligeti Quartet and the Magnetic Resonator Piano. Highlighted in Bandcamp's "Best of Contemporary Classical", the album was reviewed as "boldly conceived and brilliantly realised... a foretaste of things to come" (Julian Cowley, The Wire), "intoxicating, extraordinarily eerie and evocative” (Bernard Clarke, RTE LyricFM), "melancholy... heart-swells and proper feelings" (Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Quietus) and "a nuclear musical reaction that produces great, irradiated beauty" (Tom Service, BBC Radio 3). Xenia’s subsequent "Atonal Electronic Chamber Music for Cats" takes an unexpected turn-around, using vintage synthesizers in an exploration of 1990's techno tape nostalgia and also featuring remixes of her music by Rrose and The Transcendence Orchestra.
https://xeniapestovabennett.com
Photo by: Dimitri Djuric