Martin Arnold: Flax

Tickets £16 // Concession £12 // Under 30 £5
Advance booking required

Kerry Yong piano

Martin Arnold (Canada, 1959)
Flax (2021) 79’ World Premiere

“The longer a composition is, the less change should occur,” Martin Arnold proposes, speaking in relation to his own music-making practice. The experimental Canadian composer was commissioned by pianist Philip Thomas and record label Another Timbre to develop this CD-length piece, and Flax is the result of this process. It engages with a melodic invention that has long influenced yet scarcely permeated Arnold’s works: the improvised lines of 1950s and 60s jazz, played over chord changes with a “viscously oblique” relationship to the harmonies in play.

In Flax, Arnold leans into that desire, before allowing it to subtly transform into a more familiar territory: “Over half of the piece plays with that sweet-and-sour polytonality before it slowly morphs into the kind of modality and organum-like texture that my music more commonly explores. Flax never swings; it’s a slow-motion swaying, staggering unfurling of lines of pitches.”

Produced by hcmf//

Flax is commissioned by Philip Thomas and Another Timbre

Photo: Martin Arnold © Mani Mazanani