Meet the Artists // Outside the Lines, Vol. 6

Meet the artists involved in our upcoming release, Outside the Lines Vol. 6, co-curated with Rebeca Omordia.

More info >>>

PREORDER DIGITAL album >>>

---

rebeca omordia

Hailed as an “African classical music pioneer” (BBC World Service) and “a classical music game changer” (Classical Music), London-based award-winning pianist Rebeca Omordia is an exciting virtuoso with a wide-ranging career as soloist, chamber musician and recording artist. She is artistic director and founder of the world’s first ever African Concert Series in London, part of Wigmore Hall’s Family of Partners.

Described by The Guardian as “the pianist who cast a spell on Lagos”, in recent seasons Rebeca has toured Nigeria as a soloist where she has performed solo recitals and with MUSON Symphony Orchestra in Lagos and Abuja. She has worked with an array of international musicians, including a three year partnership with world-renowned British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, a partnership with South African double bass virtuoso Leon Bosch consisting of several recordings for Meridian Records, and collaborations with cellist Raphael Wallfisch and pianist Mark Bebbington.

Rebeca was born in Romania to a Romanian mother and a Nigerian father. Having begun to establish a profile in her native country, after graduating from National Music University in Bucharest, she continued her studies in the UK at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Trinity College of Music in London. She holds a Doctor in Music degree from the National University of Music in Bucharest.

---

Image © Dimitri Djuric

gabriel prokofiev

Gabriel Prokofiev is a composer and producer of electronic and classical music, and the founder of the Nonclassical record label and events, where he is the resident DJ. Through Nonclassical, he has been one of the leading proponents of presenting classical music in non-traditional venues.

Gabriel Prokofiev holds a unique position at the crossroads between classical and electronic music. His compositions instinctively combine his contrasting backgrounds in underground electronic music (he was a Grime and electronic producer in the 00s), and contemporary classical (his music has been performed by over 50 different orchestras worldwide).

His music first gained international recognition when his genre-defying Concerto for Turntables No. 1 was performed at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in 2011. The work has since gone on to become one of the most performed 21st century contemporary concertos. As well as composing nine orchestral concertos, he has composed many works for strings and live electronics (which he performs onstage) and has performed throughout Europe and America.

---

EMÆNUEL

EMÆNUEL is a West African composer and visual artist interested in the dramatic nature of sound; blending fragments of ambient, dance and classical. His latest album THE NIGHT SKIN LIVES was recently released through Scorpio Red records.

---

Image © Agne Kucinskaite

kamilla arku

Liberian-Norwegian pianist Kamilla Arku draws on her diverse background as inspiration for her work as a performer, educator and scholar. Since giving her London debut recital at the renowned ‘Pianists of the World’ series at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, she has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, the US, and Africa. Recent highlights include performances at the Royal Opera House, Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center, the African Concert Series, and the Intercultural Music Initiative. As a part of her creative practice, she frequently works with visual artists, choreographers and filmmakers, and has collaborated on projects for Works and Process at the Guggenheim, Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, and the International Florence Price Festival.

Kamilla is a graduate of Yale University and the Royal Northern College of Music, and is currently a PhD student in Musicology at New York University. She was recently published in Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture.

---

Image © Matt Mead

dameun strange

Dameun Strange is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer whose conceptual chamber works and electronic works are focused on stories of the African diaspora, often exploring Afrofuturism themes. Strange is compelled to express through sound, music and poetry the beauty and resilience of the Black experience, digging into a pantheon of ancestors to tell stories of a triumph while connecting the past, present and future. While his sound experiments have many dimensions, he uses West African polyrhythms, synthesisers, and other electronic tools, contemporary jazz harmonic explorations, and found sounds, field recordings and historic recordings to create modern afro-futurist performances that disrupt the notion of genre.

---

tunde jegede

Tunde Jegede is a multi-instrumentalist and composer. Rooted in dual cultural legacies, his music is steeped in both Western and African heritage. An active collaborator, Tunde is the founder of the Art Ensemble of Lagos, the African Classical Music Ensemble and the NOK Foundation, and he is the Artistic Director for the MUSON Centre.

ibukun sunday

Ibukun Sunday is a sound artist and viola player from Nigeria, living and working in Lagos. Ibukun creates soundscapes which straddle the genres of noise, sound art, field recordings, ambient, experimental and electronic music. Ibukun is a member of Tunde Jegede’s NOK Ensemble.

rapasa nyatrapasa otieno

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and contemporary dancer from Kenya, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno is the founder of Nyatiti NyaDala and virtuoso of the nyatiti, a traditional eight-string lyre from the shores of Nam Lolwe (Kenya’s Lake Victoria). The music he creates is deeply rooted in traditional storytelling from the Lüo community, nilotes who also settled in Western Kenya and who are known to play the nyatiti.

He has been selected to take part in several prestigious projects where his work was showcased. In Snape Maltings in February 2022 he spent one week preparing his spectacular performance of nyatiti and projected live media interaction which he had first investigated as the Sage Gateshead Artist in Residence (AiR) 2020/21. During AiR 2020/21 he also delved for the first time into music production to release his work KWEChE on 4 Aug 2021. KWEChE is an album he composed in England while he reflected on a change of environment and audience. He presented this work in Hall One of Sage Gateshead in June 2020. In 2019 he toured in the UK as a Making Tracks fellow in ten venues including King’s Place in London. He also toured in the US with the OneBeat programme in 2017 and in 2016 while participating in the Nile Project. 

KWEChE follows the release of his debut album Tipona recorded and pre-mixed by Nathan Okite, mixed and mastered by Jeff Chitoura, which is available on all major digital platforms and available to purchase from Bandcamp.com.

---

DISRUPTIVE FREQUENCIES

7pm, SAT 15 JULY

KINGS PLACE, LONDON

---