John Butcher will play a solo set at Skaņu Mežs 2025

Skaņu Mežs 2025 will happen on October 3-4 at Hanzas Perons (16A Hanzas Street), and tickets can be purchased at https://ej.uz/SM2025. Two-day tickets cost 55 EUR, and single-day tickets cost 40 EUR. Marking a change in the previously announced festival program, British improvising saxophonist John Butcher will play a solo set on the evening of October 3.

It was previously announced that guitarist Bill Nace would join Butcher onstage. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Nace will not be able to participate in the festival.

In a discussion between the festival and John Butcher, other potential duo partners were discussed, but both sides eventually chose one of Butcher’s iconic performance types - a solo show. He will play both with and without amplification, interacting with the acoustics of “Hanzas Perons”.

https://youtu.be/Ym4QYCOmSFY?si=r4V6WEL-MsBcyr3I&t=1283

Whether performing in concert halls, bunkers, gasometers, or water towers, Butcher treats architecture as collaborator. His site-specific work, including the acclaimed Resonant Spaces tour, reveals an uncanny sensitivity to reverberation, silence, and the hidden musical potential of place. Using extended techniques, multiphonics, and saxophone-controlled feedback, he conjures textures that range from whispering harmonics to seismic pulses.

Butcher has published around 10 solo recordings, including “Nigemizu”, “Bell Trove Spools” and “The Very Fabric”.

https://johnbutcher1.bandcamp.com/album/nigemizu

“Needless to say,” writes Japanese journalist Kazue Yokoi, “John Butcher is one of the most talented contemporary saxophone players in the world. He is a person of vision who has been expanding the limits of expression of the instrument, in terms of both techniques and originality.”

Butcher originally studied physics, but after publishing a Ph.D (1982) on quantum chromodynamics, he left academia and took off with music. He has since collaborated with hundreds of artists, some for many decades, including Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévost, John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Steve Beresford, Okkyung Lee, Andy Moor, Christian Marclay, Pat Thomas, Phil Minton, Rhodri Davies, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, John Russell, Chris Corsano, Sophie Agnel, Ståle Liavik Solberg, Angharad Davies, and Matthew Shipp.

https://johnbutcher1.bandcamp.com/album/the-very-fabric

Additionally, he values occasional encounters – ranging from the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Ex Orkest to duos with Akio Suzuki, Liz Allbee, Keiji Haino, Isabelle Duthoit, David Toop, Fred Frith, and Joe McPhee.

Recent compositions include “Fluid Fixations” (an hcmf// commission), “Penny Wands” for Futurist Intonarumori, “Good Liquor…” for the London Sinfonietta, and “Tarab Cuts” (shortlisted for a British Composer Award).

https://johnbutcher.bandcamp.com/album/bell-trove-spools-2

More info: www.skanumezs.lv
Tickets: https://ej.uz/SM2025
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1804325026989403