Beyond Borders, Beyond Barriers

Promotional image for "Beyond Border, Beyond Barriers" featuring the artist and headshots of all composers

The latest event in our CREATE artist-led programme is the culmination of the Disabled Artist Network’s Beyond Borders, Beyond Barriers project featuring new work by six composers from England, Scotland and Wales composed for outstanding Welsh pianist Siwan Rhys, a leading exponent of experimental contemporary work for her instrument: https://www.siwanrhys.co.uk

Through a series of creative workshops six new pieces of music have been created exploring the sonic possibilities of the piano as an instrument that can be prepared and played in various ways and the convergence of these multiple sound worlds with other technologies, voice and digital instruments. Going beyond borders in innovative new directions the pieces, devised through co-creative collaborative processes, encompass the unique ways in which neurodivergent, hearing & visually impaired and physically disabled artists navigate and experience their internal and external worlds.

The pieces are being recorded at Tŷ Cerdd the national Welsh Music Centre based in the Millennium Centre in Cardiff and performed at a concert at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. They will be released by NMC Recordings in 2024.

https://www.tycerdd.org

Beyond Borders, Beyond Barriers Concert

Dora Stoutzker Hall, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Castle Grounds, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3ER

Date: Friday 3rd November 2023

Time: 1.15pm

Tickets and Further Information:

https://www.rwcmd.ac.uk/events/beyond-borders-beyond-barriers-siwan-rhys

Sonia Allori is a Scottish/Italian composer who is deaf and a wheelchair user. Her practice has the combination of words and music at its core. She is a multi-instrumentalist and has been known to sing! When writing music Sonia uses aural imagination to ‘hear’ what she makes and often works with creative captioners to help fill in aural detail.

https://soniaallori.co.uk

Leon Clowes is a re-emerging artist remaking his career after a period doing other kinds of work. His musical interests encapsulated in his planned projects include disco, a Weimar cabaret style musical and ‘Head Melodies’ – ‘tunes that appear to me at 2am in the morning in a delta brain wave state’.

https://www.leonclowes.com

Jo-anne Cox is a creative contemporary cellist. As well as performing solo she collaborates with musicians, singer-songwriters, spoken word artists, visual artists and film makers.   She is a composer of seriously sensuous work who loves cross-artform collaboration and audience interactive performance.

https://cello.joannesonia.live

Sarah Lianne Lewis a Welsh composer of bold imaginative music that blurs the boundary between acoustic and electronic sound exploring subtle intricacies of texture, unique soundscapes and sonic atmospheres.  She often writes about connection, climate change and the natural world, informed by a female disabled perspective.

https://www.sarahliannelewis.com

Sorcha Pringle is a disabled activist, community musician, composer and creative facilitator based in Dundee. She uses music, poetry and storytelling to advocate for contemporary issues she is passionate about such as climate justice and disability equality as well as promoting equal access to arts experiences for all.

https://www.facebook.com/springlemusic1/

Elinor Rowlands is a multidisciplinary artist, performance maker and visual artist. Her work is founded on the contemporary interplay between sound art, experimental forms of composition, language derived from the neurodivergent lived experience and live performance.