Viv Corringham + Stephen Shiell, Pentu + Joanna Ward, Ansuman Biswas

Tuesday March 24th, doors 19:00
The Horse Hospital,
Colonnade, WC1N 1JD

Ansuman Biswas has an interdisciplinary practice encompassing music, film, live art, installation, writing and theatre. He has worked as a composer and musician in a wide range of contexts from jazz to Indian Classical music, pop songs to industrial noise. He has been commissioned by the Sonic Arts Network, the National Theatre, the Royal Ballet, the English National Opera and Guangdong Modern Dance Company in China. He has worked with the BBC, Channel Four, MTV, Royal Opera House and The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. He has shown visual art at Tate Modern, The South London Gallery, The Whitechapel Gallery, and the ICA.

Viv Corringham is a US based British vocalist and sound artist working with voice, electronics and field recordings. She has been described as “a vital force in improvised music since the late 1970s” (Corey Mwamba, BBC Radio 3) and “a vocalist of stunning virtuosity” (Louise Gray, The Wire). She makes concerts, soundwalks, workshops and installations. Her practice explores relations between voice, place and walking, responding with sung improvisations to both natural and urban soundscapes. Corringham has received international recognition and awards including two McKnight Composer Fellowships through the American Composers Forum. She is a certified teacher of Deep Listening, having played and studied with composer Pauline Oliveros. In 2024 this practice took her to Mexico, Spain, Germany and the Listening Academy in Hong Kong. Notable live performances have occurred in festivals at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Fonoteca Nacional de Mexico, Issue Project Room New York and Tempo Reale Florence. Her recent album “Soundwalkscapes” (January to June) on Flaming Pines label has been well received and was named in Bandcamp’s Best Field Recordings of 2024. The Wire wrote that “Corringham voices the depth of place.” Her definitive contribution to sound art practice is the 20 year ongoing “Shadow-walks”, which create layers of time and space, combining recordings from shared and solo walks along the same path with her improvised sung response. They have occurred in 18 countries, are taught in many sound art classes and have been the focus of articles in books and publications. www.vivcorringham.org

Stephen Shiell is a London-based sound artist, improviser, composer and field recordist working across experimental music, radiophonic art and site-responsive practice. His recorded works, live performances, sound walks, and workshops explore listening, gathering and performing as social, ecological and political acts, engaging with sound as a means of understanding place and environment. Drawing on field recordings, found and self-built instruments, electromagnetic sound and live electronics, he creates immersive works spanning solo and collaborative performance, radio and participatory projects. He is currently artist-in-residence on 'A Slice of Reality’, and co-curates the monthly Forest Gate Improvisation evening. He is a certified Deep Listening practitioner and one half of the duo Blanc Sceol. He works collaboratively through Surge Cooperative on listening-based projects along the Channelsea River in East London, as part of the UK River Rights network. www.stephenshiell.co.uk

Joanna Ward is a composer and performer from Newcastle upon Tyne, based in London. Her practice revolves around experimental score-making methodologies, and exploring what happens when improvisation is situated alongside simple, repetitious musical ideas. She likes to work closely with other artists on her projects which often layer live sound with recorded sound, video, and/or other media. As a vocalist and performer, Joanna mostly performs contemporary, experimental, and improvised musics. She regularly performs with Musarc experimental choir, and has duo projects with fellow composer-performers Omri Kochavi and Pentu.

Recent projects have included creating works for: LCMF 2025, working with her sister, Laurie Ward, on an experimental performance piece; Figure Ensemble, premiere at Stone Nest, January 2025; Marian Consort, Aldeburgh Festival 2024; live saxophone and video, in collaboration with Lucy Havelock; Slide Action's album on NMC Recordings; the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Tectonics Festival 2022; the Aldeburgh Festival 2022, for which she created an experimental documentary; and EXAUDI at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Her work is regularly performed in the UK, Europe, and the US. Joanna graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA in Music in 2019, and with an MA in Composition from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2021, learning with Amber Priestley. She was a Junior Fellow at Guildhall School in 2021-22, and a Britten Pears Young Artist in 2021-22. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition at the University of Leeds, supported by a Stanley Burton Fellowship.

Pentu is a London based producer, sound designer and guitarist, exploring experimental and ambient soundscapes, focusing on sounds that mirror the splintered reality of living in an online world. Pentu has performed at various venues throughout London including Spanners, Iklectik, Avalon Cafe,
Set Space, HQI, Matchstick Piehouse and the ICA, had releases through Mappa (SK), Surf (PT) and Daddypower (HU) and had works played on NTS, BBC, Kiosk and Threads Radio. As a sound designer, Pentu has worked with clients such as
Muji, On Running and Nike.

‘Feels like slipping into a delirious state of digital fatigue’ -- AQNB

‘A choppy collage of deranged synths, weightless melodies, machine errors, corroded vocals and guitar experiments, Pentu's latest is beautifully puzzling -
the hyperactive ode to digital depression we've been waiting for’ -- Boomkat

‘Music for the endlessly scrolling modern mind’ -- Tristan Bath

Poster by Matej Siska.

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