Recitals
The following recitals can be booked through Carnyx & Co:
- The Complete Trombone
- A Field of Scarecrows
- Poemes Elèctroniques
- Embracing the Unknown
- Scot Free
- Changing Partners
- The Secret House Duo
- Carnyx & Company
- Nomad
- Locking Horns
The Complete Trombone
During the past twenty years trombonist & composer John Kenny has become
internationally recognised as a soloist and trailbazing exponent of the modern
trombone repertoire. In this unaccompanied program he presents his own sonatas for
the complete trombone family familiar in the orchestra, band, and jazz worlds:
alto, tenor and bass. Along with his own music, Kenny performs music selected from
the contemporary repertoire with which he has been uniquely involved
- John Kenny Sonata For Alto Trombone Solo
- John Kenny Sonata for Tenor trombone Solo
- John Kenny Sonata for Bass trombone Solo
- Luciano Berio: Sequenza V
- Ianis Xenakis: Keren
- Etienne Rolin: Quick Sands for tenor trombone
- Etienne Rolin: Alto Voce for alto trombone
- Etienne Rolin: La Fosse au Lions, for tenor trombone
- Etienne Rolin : Basso Voce, for bass trombone
A Field of Scarecrows
George Nicholson
John Kenny: trombone with George Nicholson: piano
John Kenny Bleaklow Fragment
Paul Keenan A Field of Scarecrows
John Purser Trombone Sonata
George Nicholson Umbra Penumbra
George Nicholson Muybridge Frames
George Nicholson and John Kenny present the program of their CD “A Field of
Scarecrows” on the BML label. Both this CD and their projected concert tour
can be seen as a tribute to the composer Paul Keenan, who died on June 25th 2001 at
the age of 45 after a two year battle against bone cancer.
Paul Keenan and John Kenny shared a lifelong friendship, and A Field of Scarecrows
was dedicated to Kenny, who gave the world premier with George Nicholson in
Edinburgh in 1998. It is part of a series of substantial pieces for trombone and
piano commissioned by John Kenny with the express intention of developing a new
repertoire of serious virtuoso recital for this trombone and piano. Keenan’s
work is a deeply personal statement, making enormous technical demands upon both
performers - as well as substantial use of the Anglo Saxon verse fragment
“The Ruin”, spoken by the trombonist The entire piece can be seen as a
massive architecture of filigree detail and extraordinary expressive beauty.
Poemes Elèctroniques
Chris Wheeler
Chris Wheeler (sound projection)
Using Ambisonic sound projection, Kenny and Wheeler surround the audience with a web of acoustic energy, at once powerful and subtle.
Program suggestion:
Jacob Druckman - Animus 1 (trombone & tape)
Peter Nelson - Tournoiments des Spectres (Ambisonic sound projection)
John Kenny - The Voice of The Carnyx (5 carnyces)
Morris Pert - new work, begun June ’98 (carnyx & tape/live electronics)
Kenny/Whiting - If You Didn’t Laugh … (trombone/voice/alphorn with live sound transformation)
Embracing the Unknown
Edinburgh Quartet
John Kenny (trombone & carnyx)
Hugh Webb (harp)
Program suggestion:
Prog 1
- Rolin - Embracing the Unknown
- Pervasov - Duo for trombone & harp
- McGuire - Sextet for tbn, harp & quartet
- Interval
- Improvisation - John Kenny & Hugh Webb
- Haydn - Haydn Eb Op 33 no 2 “The Joke”
- Swan - Prelude & Fandango
Hugh Webb
Prog 2
- Kenny - Sextet
- Webb/Kenny - Improvisation
- Swan - Prelude & Fandango
- Interval
- Frank Bridge - 3 Idylls
- Rolin - Embracing the Unknown
- Osbourne - Sextet
Scot Free
The improvising composers’ ensemble Scot Free was founded by John Kenny, giving its debut performance in Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall in October 1998, featuring the French/American saxophonist and painter Etienne Rolin.The group has since staged projects in the UK and France, noteably recording the soundtrack of John Kenny’s music for the American Drama Group of Europe’s production “Moon Palace” which has toured worldwide annually since it’s 2002 premier in Germany. The members of Scot Free for The Marshall Plan are:
- Mary Macmaster: Voice, Camac electro harp, Camac knee harp, clarsach by Jack Morgan.
- Caroline Ross: Voice.
- John Kenny: Voice, tenor & bass trombones, didgeridoo, recorders, occarinas, percussion.
- Gerry Hunt: Bass guitar, soprano saxophone, flute, fiddle, acoustic guitar.
- Chick Lyall: Piano & synthesiser.
- Peter Vilk: Drums & percussion
Changing Partners
Paul Flush
Trombone & Piano, duo with Paul Flush jazz piano:
Flush & Kenny have worked together for many years both as improvising
performers and in music theatre productions for both TNT Music Theatre Co, London,
and the American Drama Group of Europe, Munich. During their long collaboration in
theatre, which have taken them as far afield as Japan, Russia, Scandinavia, and
mainland Europe, they have also developed a unique repertoire of jazz “songs
without words” for trombone and piano, drawing on influences from jazz, folk
song, and cabaret. Since 2006 they have combined with the American poet Grantly
Marshall, giving performances of poetry and music throughout Europe.
Secret House Duo
Emily White
- Emily White (violin, sackbut, alto & tenor trombones)
- John Kenny (recorders, sackbut, alto, tenor & bass trombones)
- Orlando Di Lasso Canzonas Sine Textu, alto & tenor sackbut duo
- John Kenny Bamburgh Beach Bass Trombonist/actor
- John Kenny New Work** male & female musicians/actors
- INTERVAL
- Brian Lynn Posh Duets tenor & bass trombone duo
- John Kenny Secret House solo female trombonist/actress
- Etienne Caccia 3 tenor & bass trombone duo
Since 1998, Emily White and John Kenny have worked together on both pure music and music theatre projects, starting with a performance of improvisation at the Aberystwyth International Musicfest, followed in 1999 by a residency with the Theatre Am Weidspeiker, Erfurt, during which John Kenny directed the creation of over 20 new music theatre pieces with puppeteers from all over Germany, using Emily White as trombonist, violinist, integrating into the world of movement and speech with marionets. In 2000 they worked together on the multi-media production Secret House devised and directed by John Kenny, involving music, dance, theatre, marionette work, and live film manipulation, premiered at Duff House, Banff. The central section of this production was a ballet duet for solo female dancer and female trombonist/speaker, choreographed by Eric Tessier Lavigne. The counterpart to this was “Bamburgh Beach” for male bass trombonist & dance. Kenny subsequently re-worked this material into a 3 movement music theatre piece for solo female trombonist/actress, published as “Secret House”. In 2002 & 2003, Kenny and White collaborated again in the Tartan Chameleon production Hypothetically Murdered, directed and choreographed by Eric Tessier Lavigne, for which Kenny orchestrated the rediscovered 1933 piano sketches for the eponymous show by Dimitri Shostakovitch.
To complement the two solo music theatre pieces composed for Secret House, John Kenny proposes to write a new piece for a male and female duo of actor musicians.
Carnyx & Company
John Kenny (trombone & carnyx)
Richard Benjafield (percussion)
Program suggestion:
John Taverner - Lamentation, Last Prayer & Exultation (soprano & hand bells)
John Kenny - The Old Woman of Bear (song cycle for soprano, trombone, and percussion)
Judith Weir - King Harald’s Saga (an opera for solo voice)
John Purser - Throat (carnyx, voice & percussion)
Nomad
David Moss (voice)
John Kenny (trombone & carnyx)
Polarity Percussion Ensemble
Chris Wheeler (sound projection)
Nomad is a 1 hour continuous performance of sound and light, employing the ancient Celtic carnyx alongside searing jazz improvisation, sound sculptures by Klaus Gundschen, and high tech sound treatment. Described as "awe inspiring and overwhelming".
Locking Horns
Etienne Rolin
Two musicians who play over twenty wind instruments between them! Trombonist and composer John Kenny is internationally recognized as one of today’s foremost exponents of the contemporary trombone, playing the complete trombone family, the sackbut, alpine horn, didgeridoo, shells, and pod trumpets - but he is also the first, and so far the only, performer on the magnificent Celtic war horn, the Carnyx. Etienne Rolin is one of France’s most prolific composers, saxophonist, flautist, clarinetists, and one of the world’s only jazz soloists on the basset horn. Together Kenny and Rolin play music both composed and improvised, calling up spirits of the Bronze Age, and capturing the Zeitgeist of the 21st Century.
Top