Pianocircus, featuring Bill Bruford, play the music of Colin Riley
...in which a composer supervises a jazz drummer who used to be a rock drummer playing with a group of classical pianists best known for performing systems music.
Skin and Wire blends electronica, jazz and the avant-garde into a set of high-energy and ambient tracks. Designed to harness the remarkable power and range of the performers, Colin Riley's music is quite unlike anything you've ever heard before.
Having been Associate Composer for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras in the mid 90s, and been commissioned by many of the leading performers of new contemporary classical music, British composer Colin Riley's current work explores the integration of both improvisation and electronic components. It also engages with many contemporary issues from popular music and has led him away from straight scored music into more unexpected avenues. Stylistically, Colin takes the sound-world, gestures and techniques from classical, rock and jazz, and makes no apologies for inhabiting the cracks between all three.
Pianocircus, the original six-piano ensemble, was formed in 1989 to bring high quality, dynamic new music performance to a wide audience. The group uses either six acoustic grands or six digital pianos, together with specially designed lighting, live MIDI, video and amplification. Pianocircus combines the best rock and electronica with the precision of the contemporary classical tradition in performances with wide appeal.
From its initial performance of Steve Reich's classic Six Pianos at the 1989 Edinburgh Festival, Pianocircus has since created a varied repertoire of over 100 pieces. The group has recorded seven CDs for Decca/ARGO, including a performance of Les Noces (Stravinsky) conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. In 1998 the group released the first CD on its own label, the Mazuzu Dream EP and more recently the critically acclaimed CD Transmission.
By the tender age of 27 Bill Bruford's musical character had already been forged in the fiery furnace of four of the biggest progressive rock groups of the 1970s; Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and UK. This early success propelled Bill, by nature a restless innovator uncomfortable with the well-worn path, into a fascinating 40-year search for the innovative, the unusual and the unpredictable with groups such as Bruford, Earthworks, and the Bruford-Borstlap Duo. This collaboration with Colin Riley and PianoCircus will be Bruford's final CD of fresh material.
