It’s been a hell of a year! Nonclassical would like to thank our artists, audience and wonderful supporters for helping us get through what has been a remarkable turn around the sun. Read on to see some of our favourite moments, introduced by our newest board member, violist and researcher Clifton Harrison.
“2022 has been an excellent year full of events, launches and new collaborations. Getting to meet some of the Associate Composers at board meetings was particularly exciting for me, as was seeing the new collaboration between Nonclassical and Rebeca Omordia’s The African Concert Series come to life. We had some incredible releases this year, including one of my favourites (and most deliciously bonkers) album: ilolli-pop by the brilliant Alex Paxton. I’m very much looking forward to the year ahead and continuing our work promoting a more eclectic and innovative music scene in the UK and beyond.”
Associate Composers Scheme
Our four composers have been keeping busy throughout the year with commissions and workshops for CoMA and Southbank Sinfonia, recording their tracks for Outside the Lines, Vol. 5, mentoring sessions and curating their live events.
Hear the first performance of four new orchestral works by our Associate Composers in February, performed by Southbank Sinfonia and conductor Toby Thatcher. Find out more and book.
Label
"It's cheerful chaos. Extraordinary" – The Wire Magazine on ilolli-pop, Alex Paxton
"Quinta has such a fantastic feel for orchestral colour and the range of emotions that can be captured in music for strings.” – Elizabeth Alker (BBC Radio 3) on Aeolian Mixtape, Quinta
“The album is a hypnotic listen which brings you closer to the earth.” Gramophone Magazine on Astrophilia, Jasmine Morris.
This year we’ve released over 250 minutes of music on our label, supporting 19 artists making adventurous new music. We’re delighted that two of our releases have been selected for the top 10 contemporary classical albums by Bandcamp, with features and reviews for The Wire Magazine, Gramophone Magazine, The Morning Star, BBC Radio 3, Resonance FM and more.
We’ve got plenty more in the pipeline for 2023 that we can’t wait to share with you. Get everything we release instantly with a Nonclassical label subscription, plus more exclusive subscriber perks – find out more.
Events
This year we’ve produced and collaborated on 15 events across the country, exploring new partnerships and supporting over 75 artists. We kicked off 2022 with a wonderfully eclectic line-up at our annual Battle of the Bands showcase, and followed up with our Barbican Main Hall debut in February listening to place; a day full of performances and discussions investigating artistic approaches to location based sound. Our four Associate Composers curated live events in Manchester, Birmingham and London, and we initiated a number of new exciting partnerships including African Classical – our debut collaboration with The African Concert Series.
A short snapshot from our Barbican partnership event listening to place. Read more about the performance here.
We’ll be back in 2023 with a number of thrilling classical club-nights and more – we hope to see you in January at our annual experimental extravaganza, Battle of the Bands. If you’re in a position to do so, please consider donating to the project so we can support emerging performers with more opportunities and professional development sessions – find out more here.
Thank you for following us in 2022 – we couldn’t make any of these things happen without your support. In this difficult time for the arts, please consider supporting Nonclassical with a donation so we can continue to support emerging artists making exciting and adventurous new music.