Listenpony is a concert series and commissioning body for new and old and pop music, run by three composers Josephine Stephenson, Freya WaleyCohen and William Marsey. The group has been producing eclectic music events in odd venues around London since 2011, premiering over 60 new works alongside international-standard performances of repertory classics, and sets from the most exciting up-and-coming bands.
Bringing the intimacy, eclecticism and high quality musicianship of the concert series to a wider audience, from 1 September 2016 Listenpony will begin releasing EPs of its live recordings, each release dedicated to one performing group, and including a mix of classical music and new commissions.
A triumph both of music programming and an awareness of how to have a good time at a concert.
Nico Muhly
The first EP, taken from performances by violin duet Mainly Two recorded at our last event in March 2016, includes excerpts from Bartok’s 44 Duos for Two Violins and Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two Violins, as well as new commissions from Dani Howard and Lawrence Dunn.
Mainly Two is formed of violinists Marie Schreer and John Garner, who came together to foster the creation of new work for two violins. Since forming the duet in 2014 they’ve built up a repertoire of over 20 new works written especially for them.
Dani Howard studied at the Royal College of Music and won a Royal Philharmonic Composition Prize in 2015. Her piece, Symmetry, moves at breakneck speed, seamlessly shifting between the leading and accompanying roles of the duet and spinning out joyful, dancing melodies.
Lawrence Dunn is a current Sound and Music New Voices composer. His intimate duet your wits an E la takes the form takes the form of a long, drawn out glissando framed by the repetition of a short melody. It takes its name from the highest note in the medieval gamut: E la. The word ‘Ela’ came to mean a high-flown place, a place of great strain, a place perhaps above which nothing could quite reach.
The EP is available on iTunes, Spotify and all major streaming platforms worldwide
(source: press release)
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 