Tectonics 2024 Artist Profile
Elaine Mitchener
Elaine Mitchener is a British Afro-Caribbean vocalist, movement artist and composer working between contemporary/experimental new music, free improvisation and visual art. She is currently a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist; was a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Fellow (2022) and was an exhibiting artist in the British Art Show 9 (2021-22). In February 2022 Mitchener was awarded an MBE for Services to Music. Elaine is founder of the collective electroacoustic unit The Rolling Calf (with Jason Yarde and Neil Charles).
Her regular collaborators include: composers George E Lewis, Jennifer Walshe, and Tansy Davies; visual artists Sonia Boyce, Christian Marclay and The Otolith Group; chamber ensembles Apartment House, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble MAM, Ensemble Klang, and Klangforum Wien; choreographer Dam van Huynh’s company; and experimental musicians such as Moor Mother, Loré Lixenberg, Saul Williams, Pat Thomas and David Toop.
Recent performances include: Donaueschinger Musiktage, MaerzMusik, Baremboim-Said Akademie, Cafe Oto, Konzerthaus Wien, Radialsystem V, Centre Pompidou, Muziekgebouw, Darmstadt, ICA London, London Contemporary Music Festival, Korzo Theater, Royal Opera House, Barbican, November Music, Savvy Contemporary, Sons d’Hiver, Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the Cooper Gallery.
While developing her own projects, Elaine continues to work as a collaborative and interpretive singer.
A truly original compositional voice, the American composer Olly Woodrow Wilson Jr's (1937-2018) SOMETIMES is an electronic work for tape and tenor soloist. Composed in 1976, this tape work was written for the tenor William A. Brown. Wilson pre-recorded Wilson and then processed his voice in the studio and added electronic sounds to create a moving interpretation of the Black spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” It is particularly poignant working with William A Brown’s voice almost 50 years later.
AMAZING GRACE [Reworked] The famous hymn originally penned just over 250 years ago by John Newton, following a spiritual conversion in 1748 has a problematic history and it is this what I wanted to explore further in my reworking of the piece when commissioned by Cubitt Gallery (2018) for an exhibition of the artist Ain Bailey. AMAZING GRACE [reworked] is an arrangement for live & my pre-recorded multi-tracked voices. It allows me to reflect and respond to the circumstances which birthed the original hymn and its contemporary resonances e.g. in response to HM Treasury’s offensive 2018 tweet: ‘Fun Friday Fact’ Let’s put an end to the delusion that Britain abolished slavery | Kenan Malik | The Guardian
UNKNOWN TONGUE II is a (approx 7min) vocal exploration of where my voice leads me and the dialogues it has with itself.
