Icelanders Bára Gísladóttir on double bass and Skúli Sverrisson on electric bass will give a performance preceded by a showcase.

 

The Auditorio de Tenerife hosts on Saturday [20th], at 7.30 p.m. in the Chamber Hall, a double programme for NUMAcircuit, the festival of experimentation, creation, and new forms of artistic expression in the Canary Islands. This is a concert by the double bassist Bára Gísladóttir and Skúli Sverrisson on electric bass, preceded by a performance by the artistic residency Unmute + Strings.

Bára Gísladóttir is an Icelandic composer and double bass player residing in Copenhagen, whose works are based on reflections about the approach and concept of sounds as a living being. Her music has been performed by groups and orchestras such as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. She has been nominated for several awards: Carl, Kraumur Music Awards, Nordic Council Music Prize, Nordic Music Prize, Icelandic Music Awards, and the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards. She is an active artist and regularly performs her own music, solo or alongside her long-time collaborator, Skúli Sverrisson.

In turn, Sverrisson is an Icelandic composer and bass player, as well as a musical and artistic director. He also plays the dobro, double bass, and charango. He has worked with major musicians and composers, such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jóhann Jóhannsson…  Sverrisson has also worked as a duo with Anthony Burr and other major artists. One of his solo projects, Sería, was named Best Album of the Year by the Icelandic Music Awards. He has also featured on more than one hundred recordings and has performed, among others, with Jim Black and Chris Speed.

Both artists have an essencially unique connection that manages to masterfully blend drastically different sounds. Their performance is immensely physical and intense, in their hands the instruments are contorted, filling the room with a sound that invites people to let themselves go and explore new sensations of the Icelandic essence, the land of fire and ice.

Unmute + Strings is a performance show that takes spectators on a sound and visual journey into the depths of an ancestral ritual that is reminiscent of the pagan rites that exist in a large number of the world’s ancient cultures. It is led by Yexza Lara with a concept and aesthetic that connects, in terms of staging and music, with black metal and noise.

Yexza Lara (vocals), Pablo Selnik (flute), and Nasim Lopez-Palacios (prepared drums) are staging, from tomorrow [Wednesday 17] and up until the day of the concert, a residency with a string quartet of students from the Conservatoire of Tenerife, formed by Pablo Ramos Ferrer (violin), Mariana Yarelis Velásquez Urbina (violin), Blandina Imelda Dimande (viola) and Adasat Santana Suárez (double bass). Together they will produce arrangements and dynamics inspired by the creation of seemingly chaotic masses of sound from different sources of inspiration from the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Ianis Xenakis, Keiji Haino, and Lingua Ignota, among others. There will be an open session on Friday [19th] at 6:00 p.m. in the Castillo Hall of the Auditorio with free entry until the full capacity is reached.

This year the 15th edition of NUMAcircuit takes place, a festival of experimentation, creation, and new forms of artistic expression in the Canary Islands. Maintaining the main aim of providing space and audience to artists who engage in communicating with contemporary or experimental languages, encouraging the emergence of projects and collaborations between artists through its own production activities, and also invigorating the regional and national circuit of avant-garde art. The festival offers interdisciplinary and itinerant programming throughout May that keeps the Auditorio de Tenerife as one of its programme spaces.

The tickets are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 02:00 p.m. Check the special discounts for the audience under 30 years of age, students, unemployed and large families.