Lives in Gateshead, United Kingdom
Born 1971, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom
Improviser, Composer, Artist
In my work I try to find different ways to sound harps and harp parts. I have done this by building wind harps, setting a harp on fire, recording rain on the soundboard, cutting and burning the strings on a concert harp, recording inside the harp, playing metal harp strings with dry ice and dipping a harp with a hydrophone inside its sound-box into the sea.
These installation pieces and sound events have formed an extension of my practice in improvisational music, as a soloist and as part of several collaborations. In that field I'm interested in treating the harp as percussion, exploring texture, experimenting with micro tuning and in making as loud a sound as possible with what is traditionally considered a quiet acoustic instrument. I also work with silence, stasis, quiet thresholds, and duration. In all these manifestations I try to escape situations that are fixed, reified or reactionary.
1995 - 1997 Postgraduate Certificate in Music, Trinity College of Music, UK
1994 - 1995 M.A., University of Huddersfield, UK
1993 - 1994 BTEC Diploma Foundation Course in Art and Design, Sheffield College, UK
1990 - 1993 B.M., University of Sheffield, UK
Trustee of Audio Visual Arts North East 2008 Member of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Board of Management
2010 Cornelius Cardew: Works 1960-70, in collaboration with John Tilbury and Michael Duch (+3dB, CD)
2010 Carliol, in collaboration with John Butcher (Ftarri, CD)
2008 Core Anode, Otomo Yoshihide's Core Anode (Ftarri, CD)
2007 Brave New Wales, in collaboration with Angharad Davies (Fourier Transform, CD)
2006 Compositions for Harp and Sho, in collaboration with Ko Ishikawa (Hibari, CD)
2004 Over Shadows, (Confront Recordings, CD)
2001 Trem, (Confront Recordings, CD)
1999 Company in Marseille, Derek Bailey's Company (Incus, CD)
2011 wind harp #2 and #3, ARPIA (Art with Landscape), Herzele, Belgium
2010 room harp, Hatton Gallery: Great North Museum, Newcastle, UK
2008 auto-destructive harp, Beaconsfield Art Gallery, London and The Arches, Glasgow, UK
2007 wind harp, fire harp and water harp, performed at Bangor New Music Festival, Bangor, ME
2010, 2008, 2006 Residency at Q-02 Workspace for Experimental Music and Sound Art, Brussels, Belgium
2006 Residency at Hamburg Gastatelier Fleetinsel, Hamburg, Germany
| Year Awarded | 2012 |
| Category | Music/Sound |
Rhodri Davies, photo by Louise Hepworth
Rhodri Davies, photo by Viola Kiefner
