NEWS UPDATE: 5TH June 2023

Thanks to Martina, Alex, Dario, Lars, Peter, Rory, Richard, and EnoWeb's own newsbot Tom Boon in no particular order for these news items.

Following the premiere of 'Ships' at La Biennale di Venezia on 21st October, Brian and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic will embark on a concert tour, visiting Berlin, Paris, Utrecht and London. It will be Eno's first tour as a solo artist since his truncated outings with The Winkies at the very start of his career, and his first performance with an orchestra since singing at the Brighton Festival in 2010 with the Icebreaker ensemble, though the precedent was set with a spoken word performance alongside the Metropole Orkest in 1999. 'Ships' is a new commission featuring an orchestral adaptation of the 2016 album, The Ship, plus new and classic Eno pieces. Eno will be performing together with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, orchestrated and conducted by Kristjan Järvi. The performance also features a cameo appearance from the actor Peter Serafinowicz as well as support from long-time collaborators, guitarist Leo Abrahams (who performed in Eno's last major tour with J. Peter Schwalm just over 20 years ago), and programmer / keyboardist Peter Chilvers.

The  award-winning Baltic Sea Philharmonic is a distinctive ensemble where musicians perform entirely from memory whilst standing, transcending the traditional orchestra experience with this powerful and unique execution. Baltic Sea Philharmonic are led by their charismatic founder, Kristjän Jarvi, known for dynamic interpretations of commissions such as the acclaimed German TV series ‘Babylon Berlin’. A community of musicians from ten Nordic countries, they symbolise unity in this historically divided region and have been praised by Angela Merkel for “embody(ing) international understanding; they use music as a timeless language that can be understood across borders”.

Brian said:

"The album THE SHIP is an unusual piece in that it uses voice but doesn't particularly rely on the song form. It's an atmosphere with occasional characters drifting through it, characters lost in the vague space made by the music. There's a sense of wartime in the background, and a sense of inevitability. There is also a sense of scale which suits an orchestra, and a sense of many people working together.

I wanted an orchestra which played music the way I would like to play music: from the heart rather than just from the score. I wanted the players to be young and fresh and enthusiastic. When I first saw the Baltic Sea Philharmonic I found all that... and then noticed they were named after a sea. That sealed it!"

Kristjan Järvi said:

"Brian is a great artist who has been an immense personal inspiration for a good part of my life. Now to be presented with an opportunity where we work on the presentation of a piece that reflects and shapes the world that we live in, is very meaningful and truly an honour.

The freedom of expression is the key element in this presentation. Every person in this performance is just as important as the next. Everyone matters equally as much as the other and is not replaceable or expendable. To have an orchestra that is really a band rather than an orchestra which executes a performance but 'is the performance' itself is what Brian and I see as the uniqueness of this collaboration."

Tickets go on sale on 8th June.
21st October, Venice, Italy: Venice Biennale Musica, Teatro la Fenice (3pm & 8pm) tickets
24th October, Berlin, Germany: Philharmonie Berlin tickets
26th October, Paris, France: La Seine Musicale venue pre-sale / tickets
28th October, Utrecht, The Netherlands: TivoliVredenburg pre-sale / tickets
30th October, London, UK: Royal Festival Hall, Southbank (6.30 & 9pm) tickets

FACE TO FACE FOR BOGOTÁ

A new version of Brian's Face to Face generative video artwork (with new many new source faces) is showing at Fanny Mikey del Centro Nacional de las Artes (CNA), Bogotá, Colombia, until 20th July.

IT's NO SECRET

Some reviews of the Fred again.. and Brian Eno album Secret Life:

OTHER STUFF

  • Two autographed white label LPS for FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE are up for auction in aid of the BRIT Trust; one had the title The Eve of Disruption – maybe that was being considered as an alternative title? LP1 / LP2
  • Natalie Imbruglia was at one of Eno's EarthPercent presentations
  • Brian may be a speaker at Greenbelt again this year

SIGHT AND SOUND

 

NEWS UPDATE: 2ND MAY 2023

Thanks to Dario, Rory, Richard, Rupert, and EnoWeb's own newsbot Tom Boon in no particular order for these news items.

Forever VoicelessA new album by Fred again.. and Brian Eno will be released on 5th May. Secret Life appears to be an ambient counterpart to Fred's Actual Life album series, with sessions recorded over a period stretching from 4th April 2020 to 23rd December 2022. Fred played some tracks in a Rinse FM show in May 2021, explaining: "I went there [Eno's Norfolk home] just to sort of heal, and we made these, like, slow incarnations of these pieces." Secret Life may refer to the longshadow grief and famished loss that billow along while you were trying to make other plans. An associated website, secretlife.fm, has been streaming spacey variant mixes of some tracks at 10pm BST each night. The album will be released on Four Tet's Text label on CD and vinyl.

FOREVER AND A DAY

FOREVER VOICELESS was released in April digitally alongside its Record Store Day vinyl version. Seems you can only buy the voiceless tracks as part of a joint FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE/FOREVER VOICELESS album combo. What's that you say? Record companies wanting people to buy the same thing over and over in slightly different variants/formats? What a preposterous notion!

A REASONABLE PERCENTAGE

As one would expect, Brian contributed to EarthPercent's limited-availability album for Earth Day 2023. You can grab his track "Little Roof" or the whole album until 6th May. There are tracks featuring other artists who have fallen within Eno's ambit, including Peter Chilvers, Coldplay, and Damien Dempsey. All profits go to the EarthPercent charity.

IT's ALL WORDS

Brian wrote a letter to his 21-year-old self for a project by Reverend and the Makers. He's also been talking at various events.

SQUARE EYES

 

NEWS UPDATE: 10th MARCH 2023

Thanks to Martina, Dario, Rory, Samantha, Richard, Richard, and EnoWeb's own newsbot Tom Boon in no particular order for these news items.

Following its one-night-only cinematic premiere in UK cinemas last week, Tilo Krause's film Brian Eno & Roger Eno: Live at the Acropolis is being premiered on Deutsche Grammofon's Stage+ streaming platform on 10th and 11th March. Stage+ is a paid-for subscription service, but there is a free trial for people who sign up to the annual sub rather than the monthly one.

GOLDEN YEARS

The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia will award Brian the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Biennale Musica 2023 "for his research into the quality, beauty and diffusion of digital sound, and for his conception of the acoustic space as a compositional instrument". The ceremony will take place on 22nd October at 12 noon in the in the Sala delle Colonne at Ca’ Giustinian, and will be followed by a conversation between Brian and Tom Service.

The day before (21st October) the Biennale Musica will see the world premiere of Eno's new project Ships, performed by the Baltic Sea Philharmonic conducted by Kristjan Järvi. Presumably this is a development of The Ship, as Peter Serafinowicz, Leo Abrahams and Peter Chilvers are also involved, "interacting with the orchestral atmospheres diffused and processed for the theatre’s particular acoustic space". The venue will be Teatro La Fenice, Venice, and there are scheduled to be two concert performances at 3pm and at 8pm.

Finally, running from 22nd to 29th October in the Sale d’Armi of the Arsenale, Venice, Nothing Can Ever Be The Same is a 168-hour generative video art installation by Gary Hustwit and British digital artist Brendan Dawes – mixing Eno’s music, ideas, art, and other documentary material in some unfathomable melange. According to Hustwit's Instagram, this is not the same project as his forthcoming ENO documentary, and other iterations will be shown in various locations to be confirmed.

PAYING THE EARTH

EarthPercent launched its new The Earth as Your Co-writer royalties scheme, and Brian also discussed the role of the Arts with Donna Grantis for The Great Northern's Climate Solutions Series on 27th January.

JAW, JAW WeLL

Brian spoke at a rally in his capacity as President of the Stop The War Coalition.

EASTWARD HO!

The East Village Eye archive has been put online, and here's Brian back in the past.

VIDEO AND AUDIO

A reasonable haul.

 

NEWS UPDATE: 16th FEBRUARY 2023

Thanks to Martina, Dario, Rory, Samantha, Richard, Chris, Rupert, and EnoWeb's own newsbot Tom Boon in no particular order for these news items.

Forever VoicelessWhat people want is more albums with Brian singing! So for this year's Record Store Day (22nd April), Brian will be releasing FOREVER VOICELESS, an instrumental edition of the critically acclaimed 2022 album FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE. Like the vocal album but with no voices or lyrics, it will be available on crystal clear vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day – and more widely on selected digital platforms.

Track listing:
A Thought
And Let It In
Who Are We
Crystal Light
Inclusion
Bells Above
Chéri
Hardly Me
Small Noise
Silence

CONCERT PARTY

Live at the Acropolis, a film of Roger and Brian Eno's 2021 concert, will be shown in selected UK cinemas for one night only in 2nd March, with a new Atmos mix by Peter Chilvers.

VEering Northeasterly

Sonos channel The Lighthouse, which features 349-ish unreleased/variant Eno tracks, is now available on standard Sonos Radio worldwide for Sonos speaker owners (previously it was on the monthly-subscription-only Sonos Radio HD in selected countries).

BEWARE THE FULL MOON

Peter Gabriel is releasing songs from his forthcoming album i/o in a somewhat piecemeal manner, once a month when the moon is full. And some other Eno contributions surfaced since our last update.

Talkin'n'stuff

Brian has given a few talks, written a few words, spoken in the previous century, and been spoken of in this one. He'll be talking at the Green Events and Innovations Conference on 28th February.

 

Other news sources

 

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