Tricko, Lucy Railton, Kit Downes, Tom Challenger, Alex Bonney, Emma Smith, Liam Byrne, Daniel Bradley

Cellist Lucy Railton (curator and creator of London Contemporary Music Festival and Klammer Klang) joins forces with award-winning pianist-composer Kit Downes, forming a pairing that is dark, detailed, colourful and contemplative.

Having studied together at the Royal Academy of Music, Railton and Downes’s paths crossed in London’s improvised/new-music scenes until Kit finally started writing for cello (living out his dream as a frustrated cellist). The result is Tricko, which pulls together the lyricism and big-beat of Kit’s favourite Minimalists, the intense imagination of modern jazz, ballads from circling ice-cream vans and their own light-footed approach to improvisation.

After the interval Kit returns with saxophonist Tom Challenger for the launch of the extraordinary Vyamanikal album, which they created by travelling around the Suffolk countryside recording and composing on the organs of local churches, all in varying states of disrepair. They’re joined by Lucy Railton, Alex Bonney (electronics), Emma Smith (violin), Liam Byrne (viol) and Daniel Bradley (percussion).