Tuesday 30 June 2026
Aviva Studios, Manchester
★★★★
The music of four titans of contemporary classical music, including a new piece from Cassie Kinoshi that was remarkable in more ways than one
Tuesday evening’s concert by Manchester Collective at Aviva Studios in Manchester was titled ‘Patterns in Repeat’ with music from ‘titans in contemporary experimental music.’ Jasmin Kent Rodgman, Co-Artistic Director, announced the concert as a focus on the embodiment of music as a physical experience, featuring works by ‘four incredible contemporary women.’ It featured music by the American composer Meredith Monk, best known for her vocal works, such as Earth Seen From Above, which was performed in Manchester recently by Kantos Chamber Choir; the Brazilian-American composer, pianist and vocalist Clarice Assad; and the Canadian-British composer Cassandra Miller, who composes using ‘a unique practice of meditation-based uncontrolled singing.’ There was also a remarkable new work by composer and saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, commissioned by the Collective.
Image Credits: Meredith Monk and Clarice Assad: Wikimedia. Cassandra Miller: Pete Furniss. Cassie Kinoshi: Mike Skelton.
The first half was bookended by two Meredith Monk pieces, starting with Phantom Strings, the fourth movement of her first string quartet, Stringsongs, written for the Kronos Quartet in 2004. The piece was built around an ostinato for first violin, which the other performers decorated with snatched phrases. With its fizzing rhythm, it had a Minimalist feel. The intricate, interlocking rhythmic patterns brought to mind the rhythms of the band BEAT, who are touring the music of 1980s King Crimson. Both sets of musicians played with the precision that is necessary to make the piece work.
The second piece by Monk was Backlight, which she wrote in 2015 for a small ensemble of winds, strings and piano. She has described the work as playing ‘sonically with the idea of shadow and light, exploring it from different vantage points’. Aaron Holloway-Nahum, whose conducting was relaxed yet precise, explained that the musical materials were like rectangles overlapping at different angles to create complex patterns. The piece, in three continuous movements, began with the viola and cello playing a tritone ostinato with a gorgeous tone, like being trapped in a dark forest. Against this background, the winds played long discordant notes, creating an eerie, unsettling feeling. The piano crept in gently to join the ostinato. Mournful, melancholy wind parts lamented above the mesmeric patterns. The second movement showed that repeated patterns can be deeply emotional. At one point, the music seemed to describe a stark landscape from the end of the world. At the end of the movement, there was a moment of tender darkness, with a filigree piano part like a dancer pirouetting. The third movement was livelier, with complex patterns played by pianist Clíodna Shanahan, whose playing shone throughout the evening. The jazzy austerity of the music recalled some of Igor Stravinsky’s neo-classical work, restoring the possibility of hope; but that was dashed by the discordant ending.
Between the two Monk works, there was a short piece by Clarice Assad, Sonic Landscapes, I. Continuum (2022) for piano and string quartet, which was more overtly jazzy and joyful. It began with discordant piano chords over bubbling strings, then sparkling piano over fiercely plucked strings. There was a moment of stasis, with mellow piano chords and delightful key changes, played with subtle intensity. Shanahan’s improvised piano solo was lovely, and the ending was life-affirming.
The second half featured Cassie Kinoshi’s ARTEFACT/AUTOMATON, a performance memorable for more than one reason…
Kinoshi introduced her piece as the culmination of all her musical experiences to date, written at a time of burnout that ultimately proved cathartic. Her new work was inspired by the writings of Louis Chude-Sokei, professor of English at Boston University: particularly his 2015 book The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics. In her programme note, Kinoshi explained that the piece,
‘…draws on Louis Chude-Sokei’s concept of ‘black sonic fiction’ to explore the Black body as automaton through sound and technology. It’s a space where Black music and sound become modes of critical reflection on technology, embodiment and power – human yet object, somewhere between man and machinery, then and now.’
ARTEFACT/AUTOMATON is written for amplified piano, string quartet and pre-recorded electronics, which Kinoshi created using an ARP Odyssey and a Behringer 2600 (based on the ARP 2600). It began with heavily synthesised sound of water droplets spread across an industrial landscape, dystopian yet playful. A heavily treated male voice introduced the theme of race. The battle between humanity and machines began as the string quartet tried to assert itself above the electronics and industrial percussion. The piano introduced a looping, jazzy, repeated pattern. Beneath it all, a dark bass note lurked like a primitive being. The piano picked up a synth pattern, humanising it, but it soon became frantic and mechanical. Crackling synths and noises of static took charge again as the human players froze. The house lights flashed on as a recorded voice announced, ‘Please leave the building.’
We were so immersed in the music that we thought that this was part of the piece. With the help of the Aviva stewards, we emerged blinking into the light while the cause of the fire alarm was investigated.
When the piece restarted, it was notable how much was immediately recognisable from the (partial) performance we had just heard. There was a dystopian section in which it was unclear where we were heading; we were buried in a miasma of sound. The strings felt complicit, and the piano fell silent. The lights went out on the musicians as the opening synth soundscapes returned. Had the machines won?
Kinoshi’s work raises profound questions about the Black experience and the interface between man and machine; electronic and human elements were blended to create a fascinating fusion. Lurking behind all this, like the bass note in the piece, is the role of artificial intelligence.
Steven Wilson, on his new, as-yet-untitled album, addresses the threat posed by the use of artificial intelligence in music by deliberately leaving human mistakes in. If something he has created sounds as if AI could create it, he rejects it. Is this a possible solution?
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
From Anthem (1992) by Leonard Cohen
The concert ended with Cassandra Miller’s Perfect Offering. Millerhad the sound of Leonard Cohen’s lines about imperfect bells ringing in her head when she wrote her piece, although beyond that there is no link with Cohen’s song. She wrote it while convalescing from an illness that made her reflect on the imperfections of the human body.
All the material in Perfect Offering is drawn from a recording of bells from a convent in France. Miller discovered that by slowing down the recording she heard ‘hidden melodies that emerged as bell-resonances combined like interleaving lines in Renaissance polyphony.’ This reminded me – conceptually at least – of Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (I Mourn the Dead, I Call the Living) (1980) by the British composer Jonathan Harvey, who electronically combined recordings of his son, Dominic, singing as a chorister at Winchester Cathedral with the sound of its bells.
Jasmin Kent Rodgman explained that this was a special performance of Miller’s work, with pairs of players spread across the stage, and the piano anchoring it all in the centre.
This was meditative music, with bell sounds gradually morphing so that the instruments sometimes sounded like electronics. The piano rang out passionately with five very clear bells, before we heard their slowed-down overtones. The clarinet created sounds that were like sine waves, the purest, simplest sound. The strings played without vibrato, Early Music heard through a fever dream. Shanahan reached to switch off her electronic score, as if this ritual were part of the piece, and the other musicians brought the piece to a tranquil end.
Performers
Aaron Holloway-Nahum Conductor (Meredith Monk)
Haim Choi Violin
Lily Whitehurst Violin
Ruth Gibson Viola
Peggy Nolan Cello
Alex Jakeman Flute
Sergio Castelló López Clarinet
Helena Mackie Oboe
Andres Yauri Bassoon
Clíodna Shanahan Piano
Repertoire
Meredith Monk Stringsongs, IV. Phantom Strings
Clarice Assad Sonic Landscapes, I. Continuum
Meredith Monk Backlight
Cassie Kinoshi ARTEFACT/AUTOMATON
Cassandra Miller Perfect Offering
Live images taken by Mile Skelton at Southbank Centre in London on 28 June with Katherine Tinker, piano. Clíodna Shanahan played piano in Manchester
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