It’s My Shout – Best Composer Award
Throughout the summer of 2018, Kirsten worked in collaboration with the BBC, Gorilla TV and London based director Nan Moore to create the short film ‘See Me Live’. The short film focuses on a central female character and her experiences with modern life in the city of Bangor in northern Wales.
Kirsten was given an award for being the ‘Best Composer’ by It’s My Shout, sponsored by GoCompare.
Kirsten’s music will appear in the film when aired on BBC 2 Wales on Monday 10th September 2018. ‘See Me Live’ will then will be available on BBC iPlayer for a following 30 days.’It’s My Shout’ enables young, upcoming artists and professionals to work together with industry professionals to create a series of short films and documentaries.
The Baffling – G39
In collaboration with composer, Fionntan Curran, and director of artisan speaker manufacturer Gwedd, Trystan Hardy, Kirsten will open ‘The Baffling’ at G39, Cardiff, with a 30 minute semi improvised live electronics and live vocal piece. Both Fionntan and Kirsten will manipulate pre-recorded electronic material live in the gallery space, commencing an evening of performance art situated amongst the work of other visual artists. London based artist, Ben Owen, has put together the event with the help of staff from G39 and look forward to working with Kirsten again after their meeting at the Venice Biennale 2017 (see below for more details).
http://www.g39.org/cgi-bin/website.cgi?place=exhibitions&id=5431
20th October, 2018, 18:30
Venice Biennale 2017
Kirsten, over the course of 2017, has been working on music for the Wales in Venice project, sponsored by Chapter Arts Centre, as part of the 2017 Venice Biennale. Collaborating personally with artist James Richard prior to the event, Kirsten combined her vocal abilities with her compositional knowledge to help create a soundscape that was to fill the Welsh Pavilion’s entrance hall. The exhibition will run until 26th November 2017, with the expected number of visitors, at the exhibition, set to rise higher than any previous Welsh Biennale exhibition.
Photography by Kirsten Evans.
For full press release and other links please see below:
http://www.arts.wales/117845?diablo.lang=eng
https://www.experiencewalesinvenice.org
https://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/2017-exhibition/wales
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39898849
Spring Awakening
Kirsten wrote the music to accompany Caroline Byrne’s direction of Spring Awakening, being shown in the Caird Theatre at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Writing for violin and cello, Kirsten collaborated with composer Derri Lewis on the underscore for the production.
Spring awakening is showing between 17th October – 27th October 2018.
https://www.rwcmd.ac.uk/whats_on/events/spring_awakening.aspx
Copious: 11
Copious: 11 is a sound, film and lighting installation created by Kirsten Evans in collaboration with Number11Interiors. With a focus on restored lighting and electronic composition, a complementary juxtaposition forms between creation and recreation. Copious: 11 was exhibited in the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama on the 22nd February 2018 and was funded by REPCo. All films and music were created by Kirsten, whilst Number11Interiors created the lighting.
Copious: 11 is comprised of a super stereo 4 speaker set up. Twelve pieces are cycled through randomly whilst two art films are looped simultaneously. One centre piece chandelier is surrounded by 14 smaller, varying, chandeliers.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Number11Interiors?ref=shop_sugg
It has been recently announced that Kirsten has been given a place on Tŷ Cerdd’s CoDI ELECTRONIC programme commencing in September 2018. (CoDI – Composer Development Initiative.) Kirsten will work on a new piece using live electronics with Swansea Laptop Orchestra. The new work will be premiered at Bangor Music Festival, February 2019.
Tŷ Cerdd are an organisation based in the Wales Millennium Centre, who’s aim it is to help Welsh music gain the international status it deserves by supporting welsh and Wales based composers / performers / organisations in their musical endeavours.
Find out more about Tŷ Cerdd at https://www.tycerdd.org
Encore
The Encore concert series, run by Tŷ Cerdd, at the 2018 Eisteddfod in Cardiff bay, included many new pieces of music. Kirsten was commissioned by Tŷ Cerdd to create a new electronic work inspired by the Eisteddfod. The new work was to use field recordings, collected by Kirsten, from around the festival, to give an impression of the variety of events within the National Eisteddfod. Kirsten collected her materials at the beginning of the festival, and the work was premiered in the Wales Millennium Centre on the final day of the festival.
‘Semblance’ is a suite of three works. See below piece I of ‘Semblance’.
Deeds Not Words
Kirsten worked as musical director and assistant composer upon Deeds Not Words – a collaborative project between Welsh National Opera and Operasonic. The two promenade style performances of Deeds Not Words at the Riverfront Studio in Newport, Wales, allowed the music and drama students of John Frost High School to write their own protest songs and to perform these not only their parents but to attendants of the ‘Where are all the Women? Women in Classical Music Symposium’ held by WNO.
South Wales Argus – Leah Powell: ‘there was a performance by pupils from John Frost School which was just spell-binding.’ 9th June 2018
More photos can be seen in further articles:
Gloucester Film School Collaboration
Kirsten has recently collaborated with the Film School at Gloucester University to create music for new short films. The films have looked at topics from mental health to the war in Vietnam and have been entered into competitions around the UK.
AGUA
Sung by Kirsten Evans, 2017, at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, as part of Atmospheres.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/iOHJ9OcbErw?rel=0
AGUA by Milad Mardakheh
Performers Kirsten Evans, Mark McNamee, Giordiano Ferla, Andrew McGowan and Milad Mardakheh.
Germination in Word
Kirsten Evans’s text score Germination in Word, was performed in the Richard Burton Theatre, at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD), in the summer of 2017. The piece is adaptable in its presentation to accommodate for varying numbers of performers, in this instance Germination in Word was performed by four of the current RWCMD students for a small, select audience. The focus of the piece lies on the growth of plants and the juxtaposition between gradual change and sudden change to exaggerate the idea of time passing and its importance in the process of growth.
Germination in Word featured in the concert ‘Immersion’, a Collective 31 production.
Performers Kirsten Evans, Sylvia Villa, Ethnie Foulkes and Emily Rooke
Cardiff in the Abstract
Situated in the gallery of Jacob’s Market, Cardiff, Kirsten’s piece St. Mary’s Street celebrated the collaborative process between artist and musician whilst representing one of Cardiff’s main attractions. The Cardiff in the Abstract event allowed chance for all composers involved to work one to one with a visual artist from the beginning of the project resulting in a finished piece of visual art and a piece for violin, clarinet in Bb and Bassoon.
Photography by Polly Thomas-colquhoun. Performers Stanley Kaye-Smith, Daisy Cooksley and Matthew Waters.
Operasonic Circus Songwriting Workshop
In collaboration with Rhian Hutchings and Operasonic based in Newport, Wales, Kirsten held to lead and facilitate songwriting within two workshops on Saturday 17th February 2018 in the Newport Museum and Art Gallery. Working with a range of ages, two songs were written to celebrate the circus and all it has to behold.
Photography by Claire Turner.
Contemporary Cardiff
As the first of a series of contemporary music concerts in Cardiff organised by Felicity Latham, Kirsten’s Piece ‘The Hunting of a Snark’ was performed in Little Man Coffee Company with Kirsten as part of the ensemble. The concert looked at text and poetry with music leading to the inspiration from Lewis Carroll for Kirsten’s piece.
Photography by Jonathan Sims. Performers Kirsten Evans, James Hart and Felicity Latham.
