Iain Chambers (musician)

Iain Chambers is an English composer, producer and performer.

Iain Chambers
Composer Iain Chambers performing in London, 2015
Background information
Genres	Musique concrète, experimental
Occupation(s)	composer, producer and performer
Years active	1996 (1996)–present
Labels	Touch Music, Persistence of Sound, Flaming Pines, Econore
Website	www.iainchambers.com

Iain has composed and performed since the 1990s. He formed the duo Bow Mods^[1] with Philip Clayton Smith, releasing an album^[2] and 2 EPs^[3] on Drunken Records. He produced programmes at BBC Radio 3 between 1999 and 2007, including Andy Kershaw and Late Junction. With Kershaw he made programmes in Algeria, Mali, Corsica and Sardinia, winning a Gold award for best Specialist Music Programme at the Radio Academy Awards in 2003.^[4]

In 2003, with Radio 3 colleagues Felix Carey and Philip Tagney, he co-founded musique concrète collective Langham Research Centre. The trio sought to breathe new life into experiments with reel-to-reel tape, producing two editions of Between The Ears: Gateshead Multistorey Carpark,^[5] and guest+host=ghost written by and starring Peter Blegvad, and featuring Nick Cave. In 2005 the trio were joined by Robert Worby, and began to perform new realisations of work by John Cage, Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff and others, using their instrumentarium of obsolete analogue equipment, alongside their own new music made from the same sources.^[6]

Iain won a second Radio Academy award for his 2011 radiophonic drama written by Peter Blegvad, Use It Or Lose It.^[7] Broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and starring Harriet Walter and David Horovitch, the drama also received a Prix Europa Special Commendation,^[8] and was a finalist in the 2013 BBC Audio Drama Awards.

In 2010, Iain began making music using location recordings as compositional material. His piece The Regent's Canal – featuring pitched-down bicycle bells – was a finalist in the 2012 Europe – A Sound Panorama competition. In 2013 he was commissioned by Musicity to make a site specific composition – Operahuset – to be permanently housed on the sloping roof of Oslo Opera House.^[9]

Iain founded the media cooperative Open Audio in 2012 with Nina Perry and Vivienne Perry. The company produce multimedia content alongside dramas, documentaries and features for BBC Radio and international broadcasters.^[10]

Since 2014 Iain has led the project Recomposed, creating live recompositions of concerts in time for the audience's exit from the first show.^[11] The project has received critical acclaim for performances at Cheltenham Jazz Festival and Vossajazz

In 2015 Iain staged the first concerts ever held in Tower Bridge's bascule chamber.^[12] The huge subterranean space housed 12 sold-out concerts featuring Iain's new work Bascule Chambers, deploying the sound of Tower Bridge lifting as compositional material, alongside trumpets and trombones playing the pitches sounded by the bridge. A recording of the concert was released by Touch Music.^[13] Iain continues to curate the Bascule Chamber Concerts, now an annual event.

In 2017 Iain created a large outdoor radiophonic work, The House of Sound, for performance outside the Guildhall, London, supported by City of London Corporation, Cheapside Business Alliance, Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The work was also commissioned for broadcast by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and had an accompanying sonic trail of Mythophone speakers, created by Dan Fox and Dave Young. Iain composed a new version of the House of Sound for the reopening of Reading Abbey in 2018.

In 2019 Iain launched the independent record label, Persistence of Sound,^[14] celebrating musique concrète, field recording and the interplay between these disciplines. The label's first releases included his radiophonic work, The Eccentric Press, commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne,a finalist in the EBU's Palma Ars Acustica awards.^[15] and its follow-up piece, Maudslay Engine, commissioned by Radio National in Australia.

Iain's album Secrets of Orford Ness was released by Flaming Pines in 2020.^[16]

Ivry-sur-Seine, Iain's Hörspiel for Westdeutscher Rundfunk exploring Paris's concrete architecture through sound, won the Prix Palma Ars Acustica in 2021.^[17]

Selected compositions

"The Gathering Grounds" (2021) Hörspiel "Concrete Paris" (2021) musique concrète "Ivry-sur-Seine" (2020) Hörspiel "The Halyards of Woodbridge" (2020) musique concrète "The Sound of Change" (2019) musique concrète "Secrets of Orford Ness" (2019) Hörspiel "Suite for Piano and Field Recordings" (2018) For piano solo and radiophonic sound "City of Women" (2018) For 4 sopranos, choir, percussionist and radiophonic sound "Infinity Disappears" (2018) For choir (SSATB) "Now Means Nothing" (2018) For choir (SSATB) "Sound of Changes" (2018) Radiophonic work for industrial sounds "The House of Sound" (2017) Radiophonic work for live musicians and surround sound loudspeaker array. "Arne Richards" (2017) For harpsichord and tape "On Imaginary Media" (2017) Radiophonic drama "Lewis Valentine" (2016) Radiophonic work for organ and voice "Maudslay Engine" (2016) Radiophonic work for industrial sounds "Singing Bowls" (2016) Setting of Emily Dickinson poetry for choir (SSSAATB) "I Started Early - Took My Dog" (2016) Setting of Emily Dickinson poetry (SATB) "I Became Mermaid" (2016) Setting of Emily Berry poem for mezzo-soprano and harp/piano "The Eccentric Press" (2016) Radiophonic work for industrial sounds "The Impossible Book" (2016) Radiophonic drama "Bascule Chambers" (2015) Radiophonic work for brass quintet, featuring the sound of Tower Bridge lifting "Three Poems" (2015) Radiophonic work for mezzo-soprano setting poetry by Emily Dickinson, Abraham Cowley, Harold Hart Crane "Hoketus Prima" (2015) Fanfare for 2 x trumpets; 2 x trombones "Eschatology" (2015) Radiophonic drama "The Regent's Canal, London" (2014) – sound art commission for Radio Australia "1200 feet" (2014) sound art commission for Wycombe Listening exhibition "The Eternal Moment" (2014) Radiophonic drama "Chinoiserie" (2013) Radiophonic drama "Operahuset" (2013) location-based audio composition

References

1. Incendiary share a pint with Bow Mods, http://www.incendiarymag.com/interviews/bowmods/incendiary_share_pint_bow_mods 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
2. Eidetic, http://www.incendiarymag.com/albumreviews/bowmods/bow_mods_%E2%80%93_eidetic 2016-08-11 at the Wayback Machine
3. Country Girls EP, http://www.incendiarymag.com/brightsparks/bowmods/bow_mods_country_girls_ep 2016-08-11 at the Wayback Machine
4. "BBC Radio 3 - Andy Kershaw, Mali, Festival in the Desert featuring Ali Farka Toure, Tinariwen and Robert Plant". BBC. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
5. Gateshead Multistorey Carpark - full programme on Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/langham-research-centre/gateshead-multistorey
6. John Cage Musicircus, http://www2.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/musicircus.shtm
7. "Sony Radio Academy awards winners". The Guardian. 15 May 2012. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
8. Winners, Prix Europa, https://ifc2.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/winners-radio-prix-europa-2012-pe12/
9. IAIN CHAMBERS TRACK TITLE: OPERAHUSET, http://osl.musicityglobal.com/new/artist.php?code=3140
10. Reynolds, Gillian (15 December 2015). "Gillian Reynolds: Shoah is so shocking it was watched in silence". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
11. Ivo Neame's Escape Hatch, http://www.ocmevents.org/ocm/events/ivoneamesescapehatch 2016-03-07 at the Wayback Machine
12. Bascule Chambers by Iain Chambers, http://totallythames.org/events/info/bascule-chambers-concert
13. Touchline, http://www.touch33.net/touchline/iain_chambers_bascules.html 2016-01-27 at the Wayback Machine
14. New label Persistence Of Sound releases London Sound Survey’s Thames LP, https://www.thewire.co.uk/news/54408/london-sound-survey-thames-lp
15. PALMA ARS ACUSTICA, https://www.ebu.ch/projects/radio/palma-ars-acustica.html
16. Secrets of Orford Ness, https://flamingpines.bandcamp.com/album/secrets-of-orford-ness
17. PALMA ARS ACUSTICA, https://www.ebu.ch/projects/radio/palma-ars-acustica

External links

• Langham Research Centre website
• Iain Chambers on Soundcloud
• "Take it to the bridge: making music out of a London landmark", The Guardian, 24 September, 2015
• "LIVE REPORT: Tower Bridge Bascule Chamber Concert", The Quietus, 14 October, 2015
• "New label Persistence Of Sound releases London Sound Survey’s Thames LP", The Wire, 21 March, 2019