Monday 13 June 2011

2011


2011 and I haven't written anything here for a long time. My homepage rogerharmar.net has lots of examples of my work - design, music, video, photography. I also have a twitter feed, as is the fashion nowadays, here: twitter. I'll be writing more here fairly soon

Monday 4 January 2010

2010

Yes it's 2010 already and happy new year to everyone (the year we make contact).

I haven't posted here for a while as I've been very busy redesigning my web site rogerharmar.net ready for the new decade and it's now up a running with a new look and content and now has much more of my design work music & multimedia. With its new technology it can be updated very quicky and I've designed it so I can put all sorts of media up for people to look and listen to.



















So what's coming up in 2010? Well first of all Dancing Turtle Records is putting out a compilation CD called Organic Mechanics with a new track of mine called Naiad. It's an album of experimental electronica and downtempo soundscapes. From the press release:
Early next month sees the release of a new label compilation series - Organic Mechanics, featuring new artists including eQo and Intermetric, as well as label stalwarts Paradise Found, Inkliing, Roger Harmar and Daisuke Tanabe
It will be released in early February and I'm looking forward to hearing the other tracks on it. I'll have more info later this month.

Frankylou, Dave Woozley and myself are in the process of recording an EP of her songs, we're recording it now and we hope to do more gigs in the coming year. Again I hope to have more infromation soon.
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Vocalist, writer, performer Jevon Antoni-Jay has asked me to arrange some songs for his one-man show in development at the moment. So far I'm working on a cowboy song and a slice of 70s soul music.

And finally Sounding the Site II Ark has been announced another art event at the University of Sussex. I hope to have good news about it soon.

Monday 5 October 2009

Things in the pipeline: gigs, Sounding the Site 2

It's been a while since I last updated the blog and now the summer has gone and we're back to our British grey skies and drizzle, things are starting happen again. First of all I have a couple of gigs with Frankylou (below) and Dave Woozley in Hove at the Sanctuary Cafe Cella (sic) on the 9th and 23rd of October. On the 9th we're supporting the The Lantanas and on the 23rd we're sharing the stage with Thom Gilbert and Tandy Hard. Come along if you can it starts at 8pm and I think it's £4 on the door.

Sanctuary Events
frankylou myspace

I've also just found out that Sounding the Site 2 is going to happen (see my previous posts). I've been invited to participate again although at the moment i know very little about the theme and so on. I will write another post when I know more. I've also been invited to go to the première (that may be too strong a word) of the film of the last Sounding the Site in April. If the film is posted on the net I will point you to it or i'll see if I can grab a copy from somewhere.

pattern.time.memory has been reviewed in the Shoreham Herald

My new multimedia piece pattern.time.memory has been reviewed by Martin Ward in the Shoreham Herald. I'm quite surprised at this as we tend to put on small scale events and I wasn't expecting a review.

New Music Brighton
Multi-media Concert Brighton

July 23 2009

New Music Brighton (NMB) are to be congratulated on their outstanding July concert at the Friends' Meeting House. The concert reflected an unfailing creative energy in a wide variety of styles and influences, but no mere imitations. The sixty-strong audience showed their appreciation with enthusiasm.

Praise is due to the brilliant performances by Anne Hodgson (flute) and Adam Swayne (piano), for their unfailing commitment, skill and musicality in interpreting often difficult pieces.

Terence Albright's substantial Partita for flute and piano was characterised by a pensive lyricism and energy, while Peter Owen'sChaconne was based on a simple, powerful bell-like figure, which gradually acquired internal flesh and complexity, as it mounted to a climax and then, like a palindrome, slowly moved back into silence.

Joanna Flackfield's Seaside Revels will be required on many future occasions where a transparent and wholly happy conspiracy between flute and piano is called for, giving summery enjoyment equally to players and audience. It would be good if the drive and inventiveness of Jessica Curry's one-minute Unstoppable force meets immovable object for solo piano could be further developed in a more substantial piece. Gregers Brinch's Anforta's Dream for solo flute, provided a splendid opportunity for monologue and dialogue-within-monologue, as the flute moved through a whole range of lyrical or passionate tropes ideally reflecting its spirit.

Phil Baker's Study for piano - Roulette Boogie began amusingly at either end of the piano's range, then gradually filled in the middle bits with energy and bravado. As well as being musically challenging, this was a tremendously fun piece.

Jonathan Clarke's Prelude and fugue for flute and piano was another very substantial offering, shot through with the energy which characterised this whole concert, and providing the flute some very rich, dark pianistic harmonies to play against, with a result that was most exciting.

After the interval, Peter Copely's Secret sonata for flute and piano was the very last thing to keep secret about, as the strong mid-European influence of Copley's time in Poland was reflected in a concatenation of urgent rhythmic and melodic figures, whose fragmentation nevertheless added up to an overall and satisfying unity.

This fascinating and ambitious concert ended with two bold audio-visual pieces. Resurge, with music by Ric Graebner and poetry by Argyros Ioannis, skilfully read by Andrew Branch, combined richly chromatic projected images and pre-recorded music. The theme of literature and its habit of haunting our lives was matched on the screen by Roger Pinnington's vivid semi-abstract explorations of Italian church interiors. Roger Harmar's no less ambitious +/-.pattern.time.memory used a wider range of imagery but no text apart from screened phases. Unlike Resurge, the visuals here were possibly a little too diverse and, although brilliant and insistent, their point, and relation to the music, were not always obvious.

© Martin Ward (full review in Shoreham Herald)

Monday 27 July 2009

pattern.time.memory as shown in performance

Here's the finished version of pattern.time.memory, it seemed to go down well at the first performance and I had lots of nice comments from the audience. It is, of course, best viewed projected 4 metres by 3 metres or larger.


pattern.time.memory from Roger Harmar on Vimeo.

Wednesday 22 July 2009

pattern.time.memory



On Thursday this week (23th July) I shall be debuting my new piece pattern.time.memory at the Friends Meeting house in Ship Street Brighton. The concert is for New Music Brighton and starts at 8pm.It costs £8 or £5 for members and consessions. None of the money goes to the composers alas :-), all of it goes to the hire of the venue and payment of the musicians. This time it's a flute and piano and some electro-acoustic music (classical music's term for electronics). The programme is as follows:

Terence Allbright | Partita opus 19 flute & piano
Phil Baker | Study for Piano – Roulette Boogie
Gregers Brinch | Anforta’s Dream
Jessica Curry | Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object
Joanna Flackfield | Seaside Revels
Peter Owen | Chaconne
Peter Copley | Secret Sonata for Flute & Piano (1986)
Jonathan Clark | Prelude and Fugue for Flute & Piano
Ric Graebner | Resurge (Roger Pinnington images, Argyros Ioannis – text)
Roger Harmar | ±.pattern.time.memory.

Anne Hodgson (flute)
Adam Swayne (piano)
electro-acoustic works with images
Andrew Branch (speaker)

My piece lasts for about ten minutes and here's the brief programme note

±.pattern.time.memory continues my fascination with long rhythmic cycles. This piece develops in cycles of 60 beats which gives a simple mathematical and musical foundation for its polyrhythms. Its polyrhythmic nature is most obvious in the final part, memory. Melodically the piece uses an artificial 7 note scale and has been unconsciously influenced by half-remembered music of the early 20th century. The video images contain archive footage, vj loops and patterns inspired by the music and has special guest appearances by Erik Satie and Francis Picabia.

Here are some stills from the video. Come along if you can.