Live Mellifera presents a collaborative performance by multimedia visual artist Claire Zakiewicz (London/New York) and some of London’s most exciting improvisational musicians: Rachel Musson (saxophone), Peter Nagle (cello and electronics), Emily Suzanne Shapiro (Bass Clarinet), and visiting from Washington DC, Abe Mamet (French horn). Named one of New York’s top ten artists 2018 by Art511 magazine, Zakiewicz’s practice examines the physical and metaphorical relationships between sound and the creation of visual art in the context of performance, painting, drawing, music, photography and installation.
This one-time event will feature new approaches to the interplay between improvised sound, movement and painting. Built on the concepts of ephemerality and abstraction, the work explores immediacy, energy, time, motion, light, space.
An intimate audience of ten will be hosted in Zakiewicz’s Hoxton studio, with refreshments and an opportunity to meet the artists afterwards.
Studio 39
60 Stanway Street
Hoxton N1 6RH
Claire Zakiewicz is a multi-media artist based in London and New York. Her performance Embodied Patterns was part of the performance drawing event and exhibition curated by Ram Samocha ‘Field of Action’ in 2022. At the end of 2022 Claire staged a solo immersive performance painting during the closing month of the Venice Biennale 2022 titled Tintoretto’s Daughter. Her recent project Boudicca’s Daughters was performed at Aldeburgh Beach Lookout in October 2023.
Her essay ‘The Aesthetics of Failure’ was published by Bloomsbury in ‘The Aesthetics of Imperfection in Music and the Arts; Spontaneity, Flaws and the Unfinished’, 2020.
French hornist Abe Mamet, who lives in Mount Rainier, MD, has been lauded as D.C.’s “major jazz French horn player” by the Washington Post, and named one of 2023’s “artists to watch” by DCist. His work explores community and belonging, and always pushes for the sonic and technical possibilities of the French horn.
Abe and Emily are celebrating two recently-released projects, The Cosmic Hand and The Thing We Fought For. Both new works are made up of the same large acoustic ensemble, and capture the tail end of a month of the musicians playing, living, and exploring together in rural Italy while on a residency there in March 2023.
Rachel Musson is a saxophonist, improviser and composer living in London, UK. She is involved with a variety of improvisation projects, and works regularly with Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, Hannah Marshall, Julie Kjaer, Corey Mwamba, Olie Brice, Alex Ward, Alex Hawkins amongst others. She features on several releases, including a nonet featuring her composition ‘I Went This Way’ (577 Records), two with Shifa, feat. Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders, (577 Records), one with Mark Sanders and John Edwards (Two Rivers Records), trio with Liam Noble and Mark Sanders (Babel), and Corey Mwamba (Takuroku).
Peter Nagle is a composer, musician and sound artist based in London. His practice encompases improvisation, alternative tunings, drone and loop textures and movement, often in cross- and trans-disciplinary contexts. Some current and recent collaborators include Angharad Davies, Irene Fiordilino, Steve Gisby, Jonny Martin, Carla Rees, Emily Suzanne Shapiro and Claire Zakiewicz.Peter’s album Invisible Cities was released in August 2022 and an album by his improvising duo Rising of the Lights is forthcoming on Dog Tunnel Records.Peter is currently working towards a PhD in Creative Practice at Trinity Laban, researching ambiguities of identity in transdisciplinary collaboration.
Emily Suzanne Shapiro is a Canadian bass clarinetist and clarinetist dedicated to exploring and creating new music. Emily has a special love for the sound and scope of bass instruments and constantly pushes the limits of what she can do on bass clarinet.
Alongside performing contemporary music on bass clarinet, Emily is involved in many other musical endeavours. Composing and improvising are central to her work, and she has been an active performer of Balinese gamelan for 10 years and has also explored jazz, klezmer, rock and electroacoustics. She is always seeking out new artistic experiences to enrich and motivate her work.
