Nicolls & Bugge
Participants: Maja Bugge, Sarah Nicolls
Series: Festival of New, Residencies
Ideas explored: music influenced by current events, music influenced by science
Cellist Maja Bugge and pianist Sarah Nicolls are both composers and improvisers with a classical background. The Snape Residency is their first collaboration.
With the working title “LESS”, Bugge and Nicolls will explore “musical activism” on a UK/Norway axis using text and sound. Scientists have given us 11 years to reverse climate change and being mothers of young children and composers/performers, we want to use this opportunity to explore how music can be used as activism. We are hoping to be rigorously factual, whilst elucidating emotional, poetic responses using sound. Our backgrounds allow us to move fluidly between styles (electronic, jazz, pop, classical), whilst our life experience brings urgency: trying to ensure a better future for our children.
Day One of a new collaboration! Maja Bugge and I @snapemaltings #festivalofnew in the glorious Suffolk marshlands with hot sunshine. Our piece is somehow going to be about #ClimateBreakdown, starting with threats to the pristine North of Norway. Only 7 tickets left, so buy now! pic.twitter.com/245xBiaArY
— Sarah Kingdom / Nicolls (@sarahpiano) September 2, 2019
#ClimateTip Anyone is WELCOME to COPY my climate science tweets to help SUPPORT the evidence of manmade climate change!?? I’ve listed many in this /thread!
I’m here to push back against climate ‘skeptics’ and denierr: it’s much more effective with help!♻️?
Copy and share!?
— ᴘᴇᴛᴇʀ ʙᴇʟɪᴇᴠᴇꜱ ɪɴ ꜱᴄɪᴇɴᴄᴇ ɴᴏᴛ ᴅᴏɢᴍᴀ (@ScienceNotDogma) September 5, 2019
Throughout the Residency
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Bugge comes from Norway and is currently based in Lancaster. Her most recent projects include the Manchester jazzfestival commission “NORTHERN” (2019) and “No Exit” (2018) a solo CD recorded in Standedge canal tunnel.
Nicolls is based in Brighton and has invented the Inside-Out piano, designed to enable inside piano playing. She is known for her fearless and playful experimentation often combining text and sound. Her most recent project “12 years” is an eco recital about climate change.