Players

Matthew Shlomowitz is a composer of concert music and performance pieces. He has three ongoing projects: Popular Contexts, a series combining recordings of recognisable real world sound with instrumental music; Letter Pieces, which combine physical actions, music and text; and Lectures about Music, a series of lecture-pieces addressing ideas such as aesthetic judgement and emotional responses to music. He is Associate Professor in Composition at University of Southampton.

A founding member of Plus-Minus, Vicky Wright is also a member of the Danish ensemble Scenatet and has worked with the groups Lontano, Expose, Apartment House, Chroma and the Ruysdael Quartet. As a soloist she has performed at the Wigmore Hall, London; the Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York and was one of the ‘flying soloists’ in Birmingham Opera’s award winning production of Stockhausen’s Mittwoch aus Licht. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she was awarded numerous prizes and at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.

London based pianist and conductor Mark Knoop is known for his fearless performances and individual interpretations. He has commissioned and premiered countless new works and worked with many respected composers including Michael Finnissy, Joanna Bailie, Bryn Harrison, Johannes Kreidler, Matthew Shlomowitz, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi.

Tom Pauwels (Bornem, Belgium, 1974). Since 2002 he has worked as the guitarist and co-artistic leader for the new music ensemble ICTUS (Brussels). Project-wise, he performs with the Anglo-Belgian octet Plus-Minus. Within the frame of the School of Arts in Gent he has developed an advanced master program with emphasis on contemporary chamber music in collaboration with the Spectra ensemble and Ictus. Since 2010 he has taught guitar at the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt. His broad interest in performance has led to collaborations with choreographers as Xavier Le Roy, Maud Le Pladec and Andros Zins-Browne.

Roderick Chadwick is a pianist, teacher and writer on music. Recent performances have been at the Pharos and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festivals. He is Reader in Music at the Royal Academy of Music and will be writing about Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux for the foreseeable future.

Aisha Orazbayeva is a Kazakh-born London-based violinist, she has released two critically acclaimed solo albums on Nonclassical and PRAH recordings, and has performed in venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Mira Benjamin is a Canadian violinist, researcher and new-music instigator. She performs new and old music with an experimental outlook, and is interested in how the human body holds and experiences knowledge. After growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Mira spent 10 years in Montréal, where she was a member of the Bozzini Quartet. Since 2014 she has resided in the UK, where she performs regularly as a violinist with Apartment House and Plus Minus Ensemble, and is Lecturer in Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Alongside her work with Plus Minus, Alice is a founder member of Distractfold ensemble, and the Chagall Piano Quartet. She is also a member of Trio Atem, a Manchester-based ensemble who have been commissioning works for cello, voice and flute since 2007, and has recently started collaborating with acclaimed jazz musicians Alice Zawadzki and Alex Roth for a forthcoming album.

Joe Richards performs all over the UK and abroad, in a huge array of musical contexts; ranging from work as a contemporary solo artist, to that of an orchestral, chamber, West-End and session musician. He appears frequently with numerous ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and London Philharmonic Orchestra, often featuring on national radio and television. Other projects have allowed him to share the stage and/or recording studio, with internationally renowned musicians such as Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, and Jacob Collier.

Serge Vuille is a percussionist, curator and composer based in London. He performs with Martin Creed, the OAE and the London Sinfonietta, curates the series Kammer Klang at Cafe OTO and created context specific music for Le Corbusier architecture amongst other things. He also coaches the percussion ensemble and teaches experimental music at the Royal College of Music in London.

Newton Armstrong is a composer, performer, and occasional builder of electronic musical instruments. The focus of much of his work is directed towards practices of music-making that emerge in the composed interactions between people, technologies, and their environments. He teaches at City University London.

Marcus Barcham Stevens is co-leader of the Britten Sinfonia and a member of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet. He has played with Ensemble Modern, Musikfabrik and BCMG, also plays in recital with his wife, pianist Christina Lawrie and composes.