[PRESS RELEASE] Islands, by composer Richard Ayres & artist duo Nest: 1 April at De Doelen PRESS RELEASE

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After its successful premiere in December Islands, the latest work by composer Richard Ayres, on show at De Doelen on 1 April. Together with artist duo Nest, Ayres creates nineteen imaginary islands, combining live music with audio electronics, visual art, photography, video and performance.

Islands is a production of Asko|Schönberg and BredaPhoto.

'One of today's most idiosyncratic and original composers. The only predictable thing about his premieres is that they are unpredictable'.

- The Times (2020) on Richard Ayres

Imaginary islands

Islands is up-and-coming Ayres: imaginative, humorous, eclectic, quirky and colourful.

Ayres, born in Cornwall on the Atlantic coast, spent nights as a child whizzing across the seven seas using his bed as a boat. A special book activated that childhood memory: Pocket atlas of remote islands by Germany's Judith Schalansky. Ayres created his non-existent islands as part of a thought experiment prompted in times of the Corona pandemic and climate crisis: 'Perhaps, I thought, the ancient art of dreaming or imagining might be the future of travel if our planet is to survive. An interesting thought-experiment.'

While composing Islands the composer was overtaken by uncertain reality along the way. His islands ran into absurdist, raw-realist, melancholic and parodic edges because of it in some cases.

Mix of art forms

At the invitation of BredaPhoto, artist duo Nest (Wiesje Peels and Trijntje Keijser, mother and daughter) developed their own image of his islands in close collaboration with Ayres. Nest's working method is similar to Ayres': both work from a visual world that often starts with drawn sketches. Nest's signature style, in which they use means such as photography, film and fine art to build on their own strong visual world, fits seamlessly with Richard Ayres' work. It is not a literal representation of Ayres' islands, rather it is a continuation of their own working method, in which they draw inspiration from the environment and nature, taking (black-and-white) photos and videos there, which they then edit into a new visual world. For instance, they made a transforming object, a kind of air stone, floating above the stage. Photos and videos will be projected onto it. From a tower on stage, Trijntje Keijser will draw and sketch, guided by the music. The drawings will be projected live.

The merging of the various art forms results in a sensuous, planet-friendly world tour lasting just under an hour.

The press about Richard Ayres

Asko|Schönberg has previously premiered works by Richard Ayres. In 2018, for example, it featured The Garden on the programme, in which Ayres collaborated with visual artist Martha Colburn.

The press wrote:

An anarchic collage or an lsd trip? No, the music of the future. Asko|Schönberg turns it into a feast. - De Volkskrant

The Garden by composer Richard Ayres, which sounds as if Frank Zappa posthumously set 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' to music. Dantesque hellscape. Superb concoctions of sound, Asko|Schönberg skillfully brought them to life. - NRC