Art of Moog performs Bach, live, on synthesizers.
Live showreel:
‘The Lab Sessions 2019’ – Prelude in E minor:
In the studio (with the Moog System 55 modular synthesizer):
‘The Lab Sessions 2019’ – Truly Madly Moogy:
About
Art of Moog plays the music of J S Bach on cutting edge analogue and digital synthesizers, with some unashamed electronica overtones.
The band, formed by harpsichord and synth player Robin Bigwood with fellow classically-trained musicians Steven Devine, Annabel Knight and Martin Perkins, made its debut in the 2018 Bach Weekend at Kings Place in London. In the ‘day job’ they play with some of the UK and Europe’s best orchestras and ensembles, have made award-winning solo recordings, and recorded soundtracks for Harry Potter and Wes Anderson movies. But in Art of Moog they swap old instruments for an array of Moogs, Nords, Rolands, vocoders, guitar pedals and an Akai wind-synth, to create scintillating soundscapes and atmospheres undreamt of 300 years ago. They’ve since played in a whole range of city and summer festivals, to audiences of classical specialists and electronica aficionados alike, to great critical acclaim.
Bach on synths has of course been done before: Wendy Carlos’s much-loved studio album Switched-on Bach notched up its 50th anniversary in 2018. But Art of Moog is different. Looking more like a Kraftwerk gig than a classical concert, and with boundary-crossing audience appeal, this is live synth-Bach with completely new levels of insight, and unsurpassed standards of performance.
‘It was a delightful hour spent revisiting the past… This re-creation of pioneering work… invited a lighthearted, joyous reaction.’
MusicOMH 4.5*
‘Fine musicians… practiced in the subtle arts of the baroque… unleashed on the most up to date technological musical instruments. I was in bliss… a beautifully refined and strangely moving concert.’
Gscene
‘Three distinguished early-music harpsichord players gathered around a collection of keyboards, synthesisers, vocoders and other complicated looking little boxes, together with [an] equally distinguished recorder player, who clipped an EWI5000 (an Electronic Wind Instrument) onto a lanyard around her neck. This was not going to be a ‘normal’ period instrument early music event…’
andrewbensonwilson.org
Concerts
2019
18th June: The Cello Factory, Cornwall Road, Waterloo, London, UK
Waterloo Festival
30th June: Antenna Studio, Crystal Palace, London, UK
Classical Transmission
7th July, 8.15: Astor Theatre, Deal, Kent, UK
Deal Music and Arts Keyboard Evolution Weekend
12th July, 7.30pm: St Dunstan’s Church, Snargate, Kent, UK
JAM on the Marsh
1st November, 7.45pm: Gresham Centre, London, UK
London Bach Society Bachfest
3rd November, 7.30pm: St Martin’s Church, Brighton, UK
Brighton Early Music Festival
2020
31st January: Barber Institute, Birmingham, UK
21st March: St Giles-in-the-Fields church, Tottenham Court Road, London, UK
10th June: Pinner Music Festival, UK
July (date tbc): Petworth Festival, UK
2021
January: Valletta Baroque Festival, Malta
More concert dates coming soon!
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