Trish Clowes directing the Emulsion Sinfonietta Photo courtesy of Basho Music

Emulsion V is the latest incarnation of saxophonist/ composer TRISH CLOWES’ ‘no boundaries’ contemporary music and improvisation festival –  a triple-bill concert, free space performances and a panel discussion. It will take place at mac birmingham on 27th January 2017.

Trish looks forward to the festival and writes about the programme. She also discusses the challenges in programming and organising the festival over five years. There is also the opportunity to be part of the commissioning of new music, which is at the heart of this event, through supporting the Emulsion Kickstarter. Trish writes:

I started EMULSION in 2012 with a desire to create a space for a “no boundaries” approach to music-making. Since then, Emulsion has presented three festivals, a residency at Cheltenham Music Festival and provided a professional development course for its core musicians. Crucially, we have also commissioned 11 new works from a wide range of composers.

On 27th January 2017, we are taking Emulsion to Birmingham at the Midlands Art Centre (mac birmingham). Emulsion V, hosted by Radio 3 presenter and new music specialist Fiona Talkington, will take the form of a triple-bill concert, surrounded by free space performances and a panel discussion. We will be collaborating with local players and students.

It takes a huge amount of time, energy and money to keeps things like this alive. Other artists and festival promoters such as Cath Roberts and Dee Byrne of Lume or Georgia Mancio – Revoice! may tell the same story! Previously, Emulsion has been very lucky to get support from the PRS for Music Foundation, the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Musikkfondene (Norway), the Arts Council and then radio broadcasting support from BBC Radio 3.

This year we have managed to get some support from Arts Council England and from partner organisations in Birmingham. It’s been a long road, but we’ve finally received the funding to make sure the event can happen. What we still need is some money to commission new works for the festival and to invite some special guests to join us. We have now launched a crowdfunder on Kickstarter to help us achieve this.

The Kickstarter is HERE

Our goal is to raise £2000. This will enable us to commission Percy Pursglove, Hans Koller and Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian to write for the Emulsion Sinfonietta which is a colourful line-up of saxes, clarinet, oboe/cor anglias, cello, guitar, piano, violin, trumpet, bass and drums – a happy by-product of previous editions of Emulsion.

Cevanne’s commission is in two parts. She has written part 1 for my new band My Iris, which was supported by the PRS for Music Foundation and part 2 will be written to include the Sinfonietta.

We are also hoping to invite Joe Wright to perform solo saxophone, Cevanne to play solo folk Harp and Iain Ballamy to join us with the Emulsion Sinfonietta – should we surpass the initial £2000 kickstarter target.

The programme so far:

-Panel Discussion open to public, hosted by Fiona Talkington and in collaboration with Birmingham City University
–Hans Koller Quartet – featuring John O’Gallagher and Jeff Williams
-My Iris (my band with Chris Montague, Ross Stanley and James Maddren – part of our launch tour for my new album on Basho Records)
-Emulsion Sinfonietta (pieces by Koller, Pursglove, Montague, Cutler, Birmingham Conservatoire students)

LINK: Emulsion Music website

There are opportunities to get involved in Emulsion V –

– as advertised on the Kickstarter
– or via Facebook or Twitter
– or by email at : info (at ) emulsionmusic (dot) org