Award winning composer and cellist Oliver Coates is enjoying a residency at the Southbank Centre where he's curated the Harmonic Series that's featured at this years Ether music festival - renowned for championing innovation, art, technology and cross-arts experimentation.

Oliver performs classical and new music as well as writing and recording electronic music for installations and collaborative projects. He's the guest principal cellist with the London Sinfonietta and principal cellist with Aurora Orchestra. He contributed to the music of the film 'Battle in Seattle', and he's worked with Massive Attack, Goldie, Ben Frost, Sigur Ros, Micachu and the Shapes, Shlomo, Mira Calix and Gurrumul. He's broadcast live and prerecorded in different genres on BBC radio 2, 3, 4 and 6, and Resonance FM.

Run Riot: You were born to play! You attained the highest degree result in the Royal Academy of Music's history, and went on to complete an MPhil with distinction at New College Oxford. You've since had pieces written for you by Matt Rogers, Emily Hall, Larry Goves and David Fennessy. Thinking back to your early days, before the RAM, can you unveil the source of your musical talent and how it manifested - nature or nurture?

Olly Coates: I'm lucky to be involved in music. That's all I can say. I had a really supportive environment in which I worked really hard and researched music all the time. I played the cello every day. I have an addictive personality, so when I like something I don't stop until I've found everything about it and listened to it over and over, but I'm not unusual in that. I remember there being a bit of a split between pop fascinations (when I was 15 I remember being wedded to the Come to Daddy EP as well as indie bands like The Blue Nile, Marion, Geneva) and cello related obsessions (like Rostropovich and Britten making the Cello Symphony, how to play Bach Suites) and places and contexts where cello playing seemed more rhetorical and meaningful than just being a pretty sound.

RR: When did you start the residency? What was your brief? What were you expectations of working at such an institution - have they been met?
OC: I met the Artistic Director of Southbank centre when she came to my Wigmore Hall debut solo recital with Danny Driver. I played the vermillion border for cello and electronics by Larry Goves, who is an extraordinary composer, a late Beethoven Sonata, Three Venus Haiku by Martin Suckling, the Rachmaninoff Sonata, and a little childhood Sonata by Britten. I think she liked the juxtapositions and some of the attitude that I tried to do the concert with.

The residency began 6 months later when I felt ready to start thinking about the Southbank Centre. I wondered around a lot and went to a lot of meetings. I met many cool artists and also met more artists outside who all had opinions about what the Southbank Centre is for and the place it can occupy in peoples' consciousness. I guess I just want more people to hear wonderful music, in the best proportions, in the best possible light, in the most profound and memorable conditions. So I started to see my role there as an antagonist perhaps- making the case for the beautiful and seriously probing things going on in music right now, the ones that I have been lucky to have been a part of. It's awesome by the river there: naively I want the magic of entering small musical Utopias to be at the top of the importance list, not just drinking on the riverfront. This is because music done well is transformative and aspirational in all aspects of peoples' lives. I guess I could go on and on about this. Anyway, they've been incredibly supportive and tolerant of me.

RR: What have been the highlights of the Harmonic Series (so far)? Could you say why you've recommended the following concerts from Ether?
OC: In January's Harmonic Series, when people left the designated concert space, having watched the film The Nightingale & the Rose, by Emily Hall and directed by Gaelle Denis (commissioned by Streetwise Opera), they came out into the foyer space to find the streetwise performers waiting to sing an extended song from the film score live, with cello, violin and throwing confetti in the air at the end. It was overwhelming for performers and audience. I know from friends it induced some tears and, after an intense 50 minuts of music in the space, with song, instrumental music, and silent projection, it was a kind of release of emotions and moving into a new space - also the surprise factor, because we chose to light the space differently from when the audience passed through the first time, that did it.

Another highlight was Alice Grant and Tom Herbert slipping in a Joni Mitchell cover during their debut voice and bass duet in the second event.

One of the events in Harmonic Series coincides with Ether, so I wanted to explore more of this juxtapositions of style in a designated concert hall.  The James Blake / Seb Rochford / Anna Meredith / Max de W line-up should be really diverse, while it's all incredibly strong music. I want to work hard at transitions, so it feels like an integrated musical experience rather than a disparate line-up.

Oneohtrix Point Never is a fascinating artist. I think his aesthetic contributes a lot to our perception of near and distant memory.  There is another addictive artist - gameshow outpatient - who does something similar I think, while sounding completely different. It's somehow surveying with complete honesty the sounds, musical forms, and naive infant technologies that many people grew up with.  "Nobody here" as small youtube hit is pretty well known now - a year or more ago is was like an addictive balm for me and many friends.

I introduced micachu and the shapes to the idea of writing for and working with the London Sinfonietta because I knew they would treat the enterprise in good spirit and we would all learn a lot about writing good songs (LS players included).  MatS are a stunningly original band, with their own interest in building instruments, avant-garde music, Harry Partch, Sonic Youth and hip-hop.  When Mica first described the kind of sound and style she was thinking about for the gig, I had no idea how it would work.  I was astonished when it came together.  Dark, slow, strange songs; instrumental textures which have their own graphic notation, all acoustic, folky instruments, many of them hand-made alongside the small select group of classical instruments - it's inspired by the DJ Screw world of very slowed down hip-hop, and bored states of mind - tiny soulful songs connected by noisy passages of texture - it's totally absorbing.

Louis Andriessen is such a powerful and influential composer.  His music is instantly recognisable.  The incredible piece "Workers Union" features in the 3rd event of Harmonic Series, played by the wonderful collective from Suffolk - Aldeburgh Young Musicians.  But I'm really glad the London Sinfonietta are doing an Andriessen event in Ether, because it's classic modernist music which contextualises the enduring obsession with pulsing unison rhythms.

RR: Do you find, over the last 5-10 years there's been a growing interest in experimental music?
OC: I'm not really sure.  I don't want to assume that I know what experimental music means to anyone.  Our relationship with music and the words used to describe it is very personal.  I must confess i'm really interested in polished, finished things at the moment.  Like Life Cycle, at Southbank Centre on March 13th.  It's beautiful, exquisite and haunting.  It's simple and heartbreaking music by Emily Hall and words by Toby Litt - it's sung by Mara Carlyle and I think it's utterly innovative.  But it's nothing like experimental music from the 60's and 70's. I try to be part of things that can afford to be complete experiences, where all the elements are properly worked out.  But I don't think that precludes the 'experimental'.  I definitely think there is a growing shift towards live music, and often it's unfamiliar or new music.  There are so many passionate performers of it - it's hard not to notice this trend.

RR: What will you be doing after the residency? (Any collaborations or performances that you're able to tell us about - no matter how soon or far away) What would be your dream project be?
OC: I'm besotted as I carry on working with Larry Goves, Netia Jones, Emily Hall, gameshow outpatient (albeit over the internet), Micachu, Anna Meredith, Chris Mayo and many more people.  I'm doing a concerto by Nico Muhly next year.  And harmonic series is carrying on.  There's a gameshow outpatient album about to be put out and I've got nothing to do with it, except I've heard it and think it's a stunning piece of work.  
I'm really interested in researching a parity between the rhetoric in different forms of media and how they can relate in a single work. A silent visual gesture (on film perhaps) could be the answer to an entirely musical question. In music there's rhetoric like antecedent and consequent, prolongation, anticipation - these are the functions of various ways of writing.  And silence feels so important in processing the profound and expressive impact that music can have.  I think the fascination with mixing media is alluring but we have a long way to go to understand better how to expressively relate them.  I think Transition Opera, who put on shows directed by Netia Jones, get this so right - it's a quiet gem.
 

Links:
Oliver Coates (official website): www.olivercoates.com
Harmonic Series at the Southbank Centre: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/festivals-series/harmonic-series

Ether Festival at the Southbank: www.southbankcentre.co.uk//find/festivals-series/ether

Oliver Coates on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/ollycoates