When: 7.30pm on Thursday 10 November 2011
Where: St Philip with St Stephen Church, Encombe Place, Salford, M3 6FJ

We’re delighted to present the first Manchester show by contemporary chamber ensemble North Sea Radio Orchestra.

North Sea Radio Orchestra is a unique chamber group that performs music of beauty and originality that has, at its heart, lyricism and melodic richness. Featuring wind, strings, percussion, guitars, organs and voices, theirs is a world in which melody and harmony abound.

In October 2002, composer and guitarist Craig Fortnam found himself walking through the City of London with a sackful of tunes slung over his shoulder, Dick Whittington-style. Now, as all music comes from the air, the sack was all that stopped Craig’s tunes from escaping and following the Thames out to sea. He got his wife, Sharron, to help. As she folded and kneaded these melodies, she began to sing, so her beautiful voice found it’s way into the expanding mixture.

When the music was almost ready, Craig called together twenty musicians and singers (North Sea Chorus) from all over the Metropolis and they all ducked into St Martin’s-within-Ludgate where the North Sea Radio Orchestra was born. As the clay music was still wet, and therefore somewhat fragile, the NSRO only performed in the City of London for the first while. Now, however, they are finally taking their various influences – Benjamin Britten, Vernon Elliot, Incredible String Band, Vaughan Williams – outside of the capital, promoting new album I a Moon.

‘The arrangements wear their classical and ancient folk influences so lightly that a track can find itself sounding like Neu! without need of drums nor electric guitars. The overall effect makes I a Moon feel like the world’s first baroque-Krautrock-folk-rock-Michael Nyman-madrigal-Kate Bush-electro-pop album. But more than all that, it is genuinely very beautiful.’ – BBC Music

‘It’s supreme orchestral chamber pop throughout. Berliner Luft sounds to me like Philip Glass playing the hits of The Cardiacs. The track builds beautifully with clarinets, oboes, strings intertwining and a strong rhythm section giving it a rock band dynamic. It’s just one superb moment in an album littered with them. Well worth your attention’ – Norman Records

Support comes in the form of a rare outing by North Manchester duo The Boats. The partnership of Craig Tattersall and Andrew Hargreaves, collectively know as The Boats, enters into its seventh year. In this time they have released a catalogue of seven albums, four EPs and have appeared on many compilations. The duo thought it was time to push the status quo and break the album cycle, so 2011 will see the group perform their latest work live before an audience! The improvised piece entitled Do The Boats Dream Of Electric Fritz Pfleumer? will be performed through an intricate tape loop system offering more wow and flutter than ever before. The show will see the group present a poem to the magic of magnetic tape, dreams and the synth pallet of Greek hero Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou. As always the music will reflect a process that sees The Boats passing the experimental through a skewed pop filter creating a sound that uncovers a friendly more fragile side to the avant-garde. These will be special unique events not to be missed.

St Philip with St Stephen is one of Greater Manchester’s finest Georgian buildings, dating back to 1825. The building’s Greek style is unique in Salford. It is situated just seconds from Chapel Street and less than a mile from Deansgate.

Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk, Ticketweb.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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