lauren redhead

laurenredheadsm

Lauren Redhead is a composer, performer, and musicologist. Many of her compositions published by Material Press (Berlin), and her most recent albums have been released on the pan y rosas discos label (Chicago). As a composer she is interested in notation and materiality, increasingly using a combination of experimental approaches to the creation of scores and electronic materials, and improvisation, to realise her projects. This often means that she takes on the role of the composer-as-performer, and has included many collaborations in which pieces are devised and created collaboratively. The often graphic and text-based approaches to notation that she has developed have further been presented in art galleries and as video work.
Beyond this, Lauren’s music has been presented at festivals in the UK and internationally, including at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, TRANSIT, the London Ear Festival, London Contemporary Music Festival, Firenze Suona Contemporanea, Composer’s Marathon V (Vienna), Full of Noises Festival, and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival. She has worked with many internationally renowned performers including Ian Pace, the Nieuw Ensemble, Trio Atem, Philip Thomas, BL!NDMAN ensemble and rarescale.

As a performer of music for organ and electronics, Lauren regularly works in a duet with Alistair Zaldua. Together they present works that focus on interactivity between the two instrument and invite new considerations of the organ in space, and of notation for their combination. In 2014 they gave a tour of the UK with the support of Sound and Music, and in 2015 this was followed by a CD on the sfz music label. Their most recent programme, vox humana, features collaborations with internationally based women composers for organ and live interactive electronics, and has so far been presented at the Full of Noises Festival (Birmingham) and the Electric Spring Festival (Huddersfield). She has also worked with many composers on solo works for the organ, including installation pieces that can be performed over long periods of time.

In her writing about music, she focuses on the aesthetics and socio-semiotics of 20th and 21st Century musics. Recently, she has published on the music of composers Michael Finnissy, Chris Newman and Annette Schmucki. Her articles can be found in journals such as Tempo, Contemporary Music Review, New Sound, and Context. Lauren also writes about the phenomenon of practice research, including its methodological critique, epistemology and phenomenology.. Lauren is Senior Lecturer in 20th and 21st Century Music at Goldsmiths, University of London.

photo by Richard Lee-Hair

albums from pyr
pyr299 – the octopus
pyr262 – hearmleoþ—gieddunga
pyr180 – ijereja
pyr123 – entoptic landscape

web presences
website
bandcamp