“The London Contemporary Orchestra (with Riley on piano and Gyan on guitar) came armed with bassoon, double bass, chamber organ, a drummer, two percussionists and three vocalists, with each musician using instinct to guide them forward. 

Small flourishes — a bow on a metal spiral, a hand up the side of a tambourine — overlapped; moments of transcendence came and went. The climax, a wild variation in volume, saw the piece finish abruptly. Leaving, for the briefest of moments before the ovation, a real sensation of peace.” The Evening Standard.

★★★★

Click here to read the review in full.

“..thrilling moments of gear-change as individual instruments broke through to the surface, disrupting the established groove and setting in motion a new phase. And with chiaroscuro supplied by Dave Brown’s earthy double bass and Joel Garthwaite’s keening soprano saxophone, the LCO’s spread of instrumental timbres ultimately magnified the piece’s kaleidoscopic effect and its formidable, hard-won climax.” The Guardian.

Click here to read the review in full.

“The 80th-birthday celebrations for Steve Reich, veteran master of minimalist music, seem more extended than the weddings of Renaissance princes — but nothing so far compares with this project. Just outside Liverpool is a railway station, Edge Hill, locally claimed to be the oldest still used by passengers. Here, in an outdoor yard with trains chugging by on either side, hundreds gathered to see a superb performance in the composer’s presence of one of Reich’s most poignant works: the aptly chosen Different Trains … [This performance] is almost too painful to watch. It says much for the performance of the London Contemporary Orchestra and Sound Intermedia that the music’s healing exuberance ultimately prevailed.” The Times

★★★★★

Click here to read the review in full.

“The arrangement, delivered in parts and complemented with a curtain full of flickering layers of the female form, is both commanding and sullen. While its trill strings, tensely ascending microtones and sensual imagery align the eroticism evoked in ‘Under the Skin’, this is not its hallmark. The phrases played by each member seemingly chase one another and at times respond sporadically and unknowingly.

With an audience that’s permitted the freedom to move through, within and outside the designer’s un-worldly depths, a new closeness is fostered. Witnessing Levi’s piece begin – transitioning from dancing string trills to sombre cello-led phrases – is captivating in itself, but the spectacle becomes all the more human with a grazing audience that comes and goes as it pleases.” Hyponik

Click here to read the review in full.

“With any justice, tonight’s performance at St John’s Smith Square — a breathless realisation of the piece by the young composers Shiva Feshareki and James Bulley, working with the London Contemporary Orchestra — should help propel [Still Point] into the canon of contemporary classical music… The performance was marvellous, broadly structured as a warped call and response between players and turntables. The orchestra played and Feshareki followed, echoing a recorded version back but manipulating it into queasy, alien forms… Flummoxing? You bet. Enthralling? Absolutely, and it felt far shorter than its 33 minutes. In arduously bringing Still Point to life, Bulley and Feshareki have afforded a thrilling glimpse into a future very nearly forgotten.” Financial Times

Click here to read the review in full.

“Flurries of activity — a loud fusillade of gunshot-like beats, a samba-style passage of percussion — were framed by repetitive melodic fragments, chords in search of a tune. The pizzicato attack on the double bass flipped the relation between electronic musician and orchestra on its head: it was like a jolt of electricity.” Financial Times

★★★★

Click here to read the review in full.

“Vicky Lester’s harp turns out to be an essential ingredient in the mix, echoing Cunningham’s sensibilities with its simultaneous delicacy and physicality, but the evening’s real attraction is a flimsy plastic shopping bag, which percussionist Sam Wilson inflates, scrunches and taps against his chest to creature miniature bursts of noise. It seems fitting that the humblest instrument has the biggest impact.”  The Wire 

Click here to read the review in full (subscribers only).

“The triumph lay in the deconstruction and re-contextualisation of electronic sounds within a world-renowned concert space. It wasn’t a two hour symphony; it was an unassuming art piece.”  Resident Advisor magazine

★★★★

Click here to read the review in full.

“…a cinematic experience that was completely engrossing.”  Hyponik

Click here to read the review in full.