Composers Joanna Mattrey and Christine Tobin, are the recipients of the 2025 BAN BAM commissioning and development award from Improvised Music Company.
With themes of conflict, loss of home and cultural identity, Joanna Mattrey’s Battle Ready II asks that the performers play for those who have no voice. The work includes composition, improvisation, spoken text and video, and features a central quartet of saxophone, violin, synths, and Mattrey on viola, creating a powerful live experience.
Christine Tobin’s Pseudologia Fantastica explores themes of disinformation, and the misappropriation of new technologies and information networks to spread lies that destroy democratic conversation, undermining our perceptions of the world. In the history of communication, we have never been so connected—yet we often find ourselves divided, mistrustful and weighed down by dark uncertainty about the future. Presented by composer and singer Tobin accompanied by cellist Kate Shortt and guitarist Phil Robson, the piece includes spoken word and song, as well as live electronics, pre-recorded soundscapes, sonic improvisation and hand percussion, against a backdrop of visual images, marking a new direction for this artist.
