Para a frente
Out on Friday 6 November
Para a frente
Para a frente is the first EP by pianist Késia Decoté on Nonclassical. Interweaving evocative piano lines with whimsical toy piano and pulsing electronics, the EP celebrates Decoté’s close collaborations with emerging composers. Taking its name from Yfat Soul Zisso's playful fragment for toy piano, Para a frente includes works by composers Michael Taplin, Angela E Slater, Omar Peracha and Max Gibson.
Késia Decoté is a pianist from Vitoria, Brazil. Késia has been developing a rich and diverse career performing as a soloist, improviser, chamber musician, and contemporary music specialist. Késia has performed numerous recitals to great acclaim in major venues across the UK, Brazil, Portugal, Canada and Norway.
Track listing
1. Para A Frente – Yfat Soul Zisso
Nonclassical Associate Composer Yfat Soul Zisso is a composer and singer based in Birmingham, UK. Soul graduated from Cardiff University, studying with Arlene Sierra and Robert Fokkens and for a brief time studying with Alison Kay, before commencing on a Masters and later a PhD in composition at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire under the tuition of Joe Cutler and Howard Skempton.
Her music, which has been described as "curiously original" (Wales Online) and having "real character and sensitivity" (Wales Arts Review), has been performed by the likes of BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orchestra of the Swan, Xenia Pestova and the Fidelio Trio across the UK, Europe and Canada in a wide range of venues including Wells Cathedral, Hoddinott Hall and Stratford Town Hall, and festivals such as the Cheltenham Music Festival, Occupy the Pianos and Frontiers New Music Festival. Her interests range from the use of different microtonal soundworlds and textures to children’s books and the exploration of extended techniques.
2. Colour Etude II – Omar Peracha
Omar Peracha is a composer, software developer and researcher currently collaborating on musical projects across the globe. His passion lies in exploring the applications of emerging technology to making and experiencing music, creating new artistic formats and engaging audiences in unexpected ways.
3. Night Mirrors – Angela E Slater
Angela Elizabeth Slater is a UK-based composer. In her AHRC-funded PhD in composition at the University of Nottingham, Angela developed an interest in incorporating different aspects of the natural world into her compositions. She has been working on a series of works that engage with the natural world, musically mapping certain aspects into the fabric of her music.
Angela has worked with many professional and amateur musicians, and enjoys working with both groups with equal passion and enthusiasm. Recently she has worked with the BSO, Bozzini Quartet, Assembly project, Aurea Quartet, BBC Singers, and Psappha, amongst others. Angela is passionate about the promotion of new music for amateur and professionals and particularly about raising the profile of female musicians and composers.
4. Night Over Berstane – Max Gibson
Max Gibson is a British-Irish composer, performer, poet, and improviser. His compositions include works for instruments, voices, electronic and electroacoustic mediums, sonic art, and theatre music, and he has had works performed in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Sweden, Turkey, the USA, and across the UK. His poems have been presented in Belgium, and the USA.
His most recent work focuses on aspects of expanded time, sound massing, the act of listening, and an engagement with configuring the space of performance and spectatorship through multimodal approaches to composition.
5. Full Moon – Yfat Soul Zisso
6. Wax Candles – Michael Taplin
Described as a 'composer worth watching for' Michael Taplin is a composer of orchestral, large ensemble and chamber music. His music has been performed by some of the UK's leading orchestras and ensembles including the Philharmonia and the London Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights include the premiere of Lambent Fires (commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society) and Ebbing Tides (which received critical acclaim when premiered with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Fabien Gabel).
Michael is increasingly becoming in demand abroad with performances and premieres of his music in prestigious international music festivals such as the Archipel Festival in Geneva, Switzerland and the 2017 ISCM World Music Days' in Vancouver, Canada.
