Shlomowitz on Plus-Minus Ensemble

Matthew Shlomowitz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Wanderlust

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

7:00pm Tuesday 17 March 2026
Council Chamber, Deptford Town Hall
New Cross Road, London

Programme

Nina Guo and Joseph Houston

Jennifer Walshe • selection from Twelve climate change songs

Matthew Shlomowitz • sad music, happy lyric
Charles Ives • Down East
Matthew Shlomowitz • Babe, I’m spiralling
Matthew Shlomowitz • Erotik
Charles Ives • Son of a gambolier

Charles Ives • The Housatonic at Stockbridge
Matthew Shlomowitz • Long grass
Matthew Shlomowitz • Wanderlust

Cafe Oto residency

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Monday 12 to Wednesday 14 January 2026
Cafe Oto, London
doors nightly 7:30pm

Plus Minus Ensemble presents three nights of music, joined by special guests Maddie Ashman and Kaj Duncan David, and Danish ensemble Scenatet.

Mappings: Monday 12 January

Mads Emil Dreyer • Miniature 1
for four performers — Scenatet
Joanna Bailie • Roll Call
for piano and video — Mark Knoop
Andrea Balency-Béarn • Mappings (El Mapa No Es el Territorio)
for seven instruments — Plus Minus Ensemble

Inferner Park

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

7:30pm Sunday 30 June 2024
Cafe Oto
London

Thomas Stiegler • Inferner Park
Matthew Shlomowitz • Explorations in Polytonality and Other Musical Wonders, Volume 2
Jasper Vanpaemel • ABC for three small slideflutes
Galina Ustvolskaya • Sonata for Violin and Piano

Plus-Minus Ensemble musicians Mira Benjamin and Mark Knoop present works for violin and piano, and are joined by Flemish recorder trio Apsara performing Matthew Shlomowitz and Jasper Vanpaemel.

Open Music

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

8:00pm Saturday 10 December 2022
ARTist’s
Schützgasse 16
Graz
Austria

Matthew Shlomowitz • Lecture about Listening to Music
Simon Steen Andersen • Difficulties Putting it into Practice
Sarah Nemtsov • Drummed Variation
Steven Kazuo Takasugi • Strange Autumn

Dialogues Festival 2

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

7:00pm Wednesday 7 July 2021
Reid Concert Hall
Edinburgh College of Art
Edinburgh

Featuring Mamoru Iriguchi. The concert will be live-streamed on YouTube.

Matthew Shlomowitz • Lecture about Bad Music

Lecture About Bad Music

Mon, 29 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Monday 29 July 2019
UK Society for Music Analysis
Turner Sims
Southampton

Heinrich Biber • Passacaglia
Domenico Scarlatti • Sonatas K519, K380 and K159
Matthew Shlomowitz • Lecture About Bad Music

Cafe Oto

Thu, 18 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

8:00pm Thursday 18 May 2017
Cafe Oto
18-22 Ashwin Street
London E8 3DL

Matthew Shlomowitz • Popular Contexts, Volume 6
Bernhard Lang • The Cold Trip, part 2
Marko Ciciliani • Black Horizon

Plus-Minus Ensemble and guest soprano Juliet Fraser present three recent works. Matthew Shlomowitz’s Popular Contexts series combines recognisable real-world recorded sound with live instrumental music. In Volume 6, with recordings of both the world and the world of music, the sampler joins vibes and kit to expand the sonic and conceptual horizons of a jazz-pop trio. The Cold Trip is part of Bernhard Lang’s ongoing Monadologies cycle, which presents ‘meta-compositions’ based on well-known scores from music history. Part 2, for voice, piano and laptop, deals with the second half of Winterreise, creating palimpsests of Schubert’s original textures. Marko Ciciliani’s Black Horizon was inspired by trips the composer made to the western deserts of the USA. Ciciliani treats the electric guitars as resonant spaces, subdividing the strings to transform each one into a virtual instrument with its own acoustic properties.

MaerzMusik

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

7:30pm Monday 14 March 2016
Haus der Berliner Festspiele
Schaperstraße 24
10719 Berlin Wilmersdorf

Concert 1 • 19:30

Joanna Bailie • Artificial Environment No.8
Joanna Bailie • Artificial Environments Nos.1-5

Concert 2 • 20:30

Matthew Shlomowitz • Lecture about Bad Music

Concert 3 • 22:00

Simon Løffler • b
Johannes Kreidler • Charts Music
Natacha Diels • 2.5 Nightmares for Jessie
Alexander Schubert • Sensate Focus

Bilbao

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

8:00pm Tuesday 2 February 2016
Fundación BBVA Plaza de San Nicolás, 4.
Bilbao

Matthew Shlomowitz • Fast Medium Swing
Aldo Clementi • Madrigale
José M. Sánchez-Verdú • Tres Caprichos
Bernhard Lang • DW23: …Loops for Dr. X
James Tenney • Critical Band

Kammer Klang 2015

Tue, 03 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

8:00pm Tuesday 3 November 2015
Kammer Klang
Cafe Oto
18-22 Ashwin Street, London

Matthew Shlomowitz • Lecture About Bad Music

Southampton University

Mon, 02 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

1:00pm Monday 2 November 2015
Turner Sims Concert Hall
Southampton University

Matthew Shlomowitz • Lecture About Bad Music
Ben Jameson • Construction in Metal

Ultima Festival 2015

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

5:00pm Friday 11 September 2015
Den Norske Opera & Ballet
Kirsten Flagstads Plass 1
Oslo

Ensemble Plus-Minus presents a concert of two genre-stretching pieces especially written for the group. Matthew Shlomowitz’s Lecture About Bad Music (2015), drawing on scholarship from a range of fields and employing musical demonstrations and recreations of psychological experiments, asks us to consider if a piece of music can be inherently bad, or whether such judgements are purely subjective. Alexander Schubert’s Sensate Focus (2014) on the other hand, is concerned with the interplay between sound and image, and adds light as a fifth performer to a quartet of musicians. Using strobing effects, Schubert explores issues of sampling and sensorial experience in both the audio and visual domains, and our ability to form continuities from discrete objects.

Reinholdtsen/Beckett at the ICA

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Wednesday 18 November 2009
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Mall, London

Plus-Minus and Kämmer Klang co-present an event featuring composer Trond Reinholdtsen and visual artist James Beckett, in a night featuring motorcross trophies, travel sounds, rabbits, power point presentations and microtonal music.

19:00, Lower Gallery

James Beckett • Trophies

19:30, Theatre

Kämmer Klang / Plus Minus perform:

Iannis Xenakis • Charisma
Trond Reinholdtsen • Concert Music Piece
Alex Hills • Some states can be resolved rhythmically
Matthew Shlomowitz • Fast Medium Swing

Talk Show at the ICA

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Tuesday 26 to Sunday 31 May 2009
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Mall, London

As part of the ICA’s Talk Show season, Plus-Minus will spend a week in residence. The ensemble will rehearse in the public galleries, presenting a short concert at the end of each day. The week will culminate in a full-length concert on Sunday 31 May. Repertoire will include:

György Ligeti • Atmosphères (arranged)
Tim Parkinson • Quartet
James Saunders • divisions that could be autonomous but that comprise the whole
Matthew Shlomowitz • Letter Piece #5, Northern Cities
Joanna Bailie • On and Off 2
Tom Johnson • Trio
Laurence Crane • Come back to the old specimen Cabinet John Vigani, John Vigani

BMIC Cutting Edge 2008

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

7:30pm Thursday 23 October 2008
BMIC Cutting Edge Series
The Warehouse, London

Peter Ablinger • Agnes Gonxha Bojaxiu, Mao Tse-Tung from Voices and Piano
Matthew Shlomowitz • Fast Medium Swing [wp]
Peter Ablinger • Instrumente und Rauschen
Peter Ablinger • Bertolt Brecht, Lech Walesa, Hanna Schygulla from Voices and Piano
Markus Trunk • Raw Rows
Peter Ablinger • Akkordeon und Rauschen
Laurence Crane • Octet [wp]

Rational Rec – Artquest 5th Birthday

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Tuesday 5 December 2006
Rational Rec
Artquest 5th birthday celebration
The Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
44 Pollard Row
London E2 6NB, UK

Laurence Crane • Cello Piece for Michael Parsons
Robert Ashley/Alex Waterman • In Memorium Esteban Gomez
Christopher Fox • Generic Composition #7
Matthew Shlomowitz • Slow Flipping Harmony
John Cage • Five

St Petri Dom

Thu, 17 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Thursday 17 March 2005
St Petri Dom, Am Markt
Bremen, Germany

Robert Ashley/Alex Waterman • In Memorium Esteban Gomez
Matthew Shlomowitz • Cannot Not
Karlheinz Stockhausen/Erik Ulman • Plus-Minus
James Saunders • #170305
Thomas Meadowcroft • A Vanity Press
David Helbich • Lauthalt

Nadine-Plateau 2005

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Wednesday 16 March 2005
Nadine-Plateau
Herderstraat 30, Brussels

Robert Ashley/Alex Waterman • In Memorium Esteban Gomez
Matthew Shlomowitz • Cannot Not
Karlheinz Stockhausen/Erik Ulman • Plus-Minus
James Saunders • #160305
Thomas Meadowcroft • A Vanity Press
David Helbich • Lauthalt [wp]

Concerten Tot en Met

Mon, 24 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

8:00pm Monday 24 November 2003
Concerten Tot en Met
Het Bethanienklooster, Amsterdam

Bryn Harrison • Rise
Matthew Shlomowitz • Thought Rhythms
Michael Finnissy • WAM
Richard Ayres • No. 19
Richard Barrett • von hinter dem Schmerz
Karlheinz Stockhausen/Erik Ulman • Plus-Minus

Nadine-Plateau

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

7:30pm Saturday 22 November 2003
Nadine-Plateau
Herderstraat 30, Brussels

Bryn Harrison • Rise
Matthew Shlomowitz • Thought Rhythms
Alex Hills • Ars Memoria
Stefan Van Eycken • A feeling of Something Happening
Richard Ayres • No. 19
Tristan Murail • Attracteurs etranges
Michael Finnissy • WAM

BMIC Cutting Edge 2003

Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000

7:30pm Thursday 20 November 2003
BMIC Cutting Edge Series
The Warehouse, London

Bryn Harrison • Rise [wp]
Matthew Shlomowitz • Thought Rhythms
Stefan Van Eycken • A feeling of Something Happening [wp]
Michael Finnissy • WAM
Richard Ayres • No. 19
Richard Barrett • von hinter dem Schmerz
Karlheinz Stockhausen/Erik Ulman • Plus-Minus [wp]

This concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 3