James Heather / Luke Howard – Unitarian Church – 23/03/19

Born Optimistic presents – James Heather / Luke Howard – Doors 7.30pm / Show 8pm
Tickets €25 from www.bornoptimistic.com

If you’re looking for something to do tomorrow night, you could do a lot worse than going to the  Unitarian church where two contemporary pianists perform for a night of ‘post classical’ bliss.

“Heather is one of the new school set of ‘post classical’ artists flourishing in the wake of the long, steady but recently accelerated success of figureheads like Max Richter and Nils Frahm, and the wider public’s overdue but now burgeoning relationship with this varied genre. He played a magical concert for Born Optimistic in November 2017 and as expected, his trajectory has shot upwards since. His music is both straightforward and complex, instantly accessible yet rewarding of multiple listens. His tracks have received over 60 million plays on Spotify, Apple and other services.”

“Australian Music Prize-nominated composer Luke Howard is one of Australia’s foremost practitioners of contemporary classical music. Having already accomplished so much and with more on the horizon, he is set to captivate audiences worldwide. His piano playing has been described as “absolutely heavenly” (Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC Radio 6) and his music as “an ambient masterclass” (Musos’ Guide), but no words can fully capture the potency of Howard’s enthralling compositions. A pianist since childhood, Howard has scored films and performed with artists as diverse as Lior and Jeff Mills, capturing audiences with contemporary classical arrangements that curl and twist around the boundaries of a particular emotion. Though wordless, Howard’s songs perform a function unique to music as a medium – that of evoking without describing, bringing listeners to a feeling which defies articulating. Now signed to UK label Mercury KX (Lambert, Olafur Arnalds, Solomon Grey), 2018 has seen the release of Howard’s third solo album Open Heart Story, which explores fragmented relationships, childhood memories and the passage of time. He has also toured extensively with shows in Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg (Elbphilharmonie), Istanbul, London, Moscow, and Warsaw. Back home in Melbourne, Howard also composed music for the virtual reality project The Unknown Patient (which premiered at the Venice Biennale) and the short film The Sand That Ate The Sea.”