Sonic Threads: Ultimate Breath / Helen Anahita Wilson + Tuulikki Bartosik

Free Event

Sonic Threads + Isobel Mortimer:
Supriya Nagarajan Indian vocals
Lucy Nolan harp
Isobel Mortimer bass clarinet 

Supriya Nagarajan (1965) & Lucy Nolan (1992)
Ultimate Breath, Vayu (2025) 20’ World Premiere 

—————– 

Tuulikki Bartosik zither / electronics / vocals
Helen Anahita Wilson piano / electronics / percussion 

Tuulikki Bartosik (Estonia, 1976) & Helen Anahita Wilson (UK, 1981)
love — hate — attachment — music 
or 
masochistic music for a relationship gone bad (2025) 18’ World Premiere 

Daring and innovative, Sonic Threads transcend cultural and genre boundaries, seamlessly merging Eastern and Western influences. Supriya Nagarajan is a composer and singer who creates rich, dreamy soundscapes as she combines her Indian musical background with contemporary classical music, while harpist Lucy Nolan combines raga-inspired music, free improvisation, and electronics, drawing on jazz, Carnatic, and Western classical traditions to weave intricate sonic tapestries. 

At hcmf// 2025, they – together with guest artist Isobel Mortimer – premiere Ultimate Breath, a trio performance which delves into breath and the impact of air pollution on the lungs, indirectly encouraging audiences to explore the power of their own breath on the nervous system, the concept of invisible notes, and the resonances of the voice, harp and bass clarinet in relation to the human lung. Ultimate Breath is paired with a new piece, Vayu, which explores air through the lens of Hindu mythology. Named after the God of Wind, it investigates the invisible yet vital force of air on earth. 

Tuulikki Bartosik and Helen Anahita Wilson present the world premiere of love — hate — attachment — music, exploring attachment theory through composed, indeterminate, and improvised exercises in wild musical masochism and asking the question: What happens to music when the relationship between its creators breaks down?  

Bartosik and Wilson enter an uneasy contract, locked in a destructive but addictive duo, sounding out their dysfunctional bond through magnetic, harmful beat motifs and distorted Nordic songs. Attempts at freedom through improvisation, electronic overload, and vocal departures are repeatedly dragged back into the same corrosive orbit in which the pleasure of sound is only accessed through their endurance of distortion and dysfunction. 

Produced by hcmf// as part of The Current Climate
Ultimate Breath is supported by Brass Bands England and York Festival of Ideas 

Photo: Sonic Threads © V Marni // Tuulikki Bartosik © Laura Lewis // Helen Ahita Wilson © Christopher Long