An assembly are a group dedicated to contemporary and experimental music, installation, and performance.

Throughout the first week of October, An assembly will embark on their debut tour of the UK to Manchester, London and Birmingham, presenting exciting new music, film and performance by three emerging composers and artists: Louis DHeudieres, Rowland Hill, and Charlie Usher.

Throughout Louis DHeudieres ‘Laughter Studies 6b’, four vocalists stand downstage from a small instrumental quintet, describing and imitating their own private soundtracks of synthesised tunes and field recordings, transmitted to them via earphones in a surreal and hysterical collision of subjectivities accompanied by angular melodies and midi-drum solos.

Award winning visual artist Rowland Hill continues this process of interpreting found material in a new film and performance commissioned by An assembly. Created as a response to Edwin Denbys 1959 review of Stravinskys final ballet, ‘Agon’, Hill uses Denbys review and its relentless metaphors, references and precise visual shocks as a script for a new work, taking the linguistic articulation of a dance and returning it to a choreographed state through film, live performance and sound.

These three concerts will culminate in the world premiere of ‘An assembly’ by Brussels-based composer Charlie Usher, a 45-minute meditation on listening, hearing, and duration for large ensemble and audio. A constant wave of 14-second miniatures, ‘An assembly’ invites us to eavesdrop on real-time transcriptions of music Usher listened to while writing, and as the piece folds into itself, and unfolds away from us, we trace this vast new work into our evening.

Conceived as a large, open, and flexible group with no fixed line up, format or personnel, An assembly have appeared in many guises, tackling works from virtuosic ensemble scores to mass group readings, via text scores, graphic notation, long duration performances, one-on-one ASMR installations, physical performance, and wrestling.

Founded in 2017 by the conductor/composer Jack Sheen, An assembly have been a featured ensemble on BBC Radio 3, London Contemporary Music Festival and NTS Radio.

This tour is supported by Arts Council England, Sound And Music’s Composer-Curator Scheme, and the Hinrichsen Foundation.