07.03.2025

KRAAK FEST 25 HIGHLIGHTS: Rhodri Davies

Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies fluidly and fluently traverses the dichotomy of improvisation and composition in his own singular cadence. With a musical trajectory spanning several decades, Rhodri deploys a radical approach to the harp and its possibilities, treating the instrument as a sculptural tool whose range extends beyond its traditional capacities while never losing love for its folk music roots. Below: some pictures and videos to give you a clue of what to expect this Saturday eve!

Rhodri Davies is immersed in the worlds of improvisation, musical experimentation, composition and contemporary classical performance. He plays harp, electric harp, live-electronics and builds wind, water, ice, dry ice and fire harp installations and has released eight solo albums. His regular groups include: HEN OGLEDD, Magda Mayas' Filamental, In Situ Ens., Cranc, Common Objects and a duo with John Butcher. He has worked with the following artists: David Sylvian, Jenny Hval, Derek Bailey, Sofia Jernberg, Lina Lapelyte, Pat Thomas, Simon H Fell and Will Gaines.For the last thirteen years Davies has been closely associated with the pioneering composer Eliane Radigue performing eighteen of her pieces. She composed OCCAM I for Davies in 2011, the first in an ongoing series of solo and ensemble pieces for individual instrumentalists in which a performer’s personal performance technique and particular relationship to their instrument function as the compositional material of the piece. New pieces for solo harp have also been composed for him by: Christian Wolff, Carole Finer, Philip Corner, Phill Niblock, Ben Patterson, Alison Knowles, Taku Sugimoto, Mieko Shiomi and Yasunao Tone.In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on ‘Self-cancellation’, a large-scale audio-visual collaboration in London and Glasgow. In 2012 he was the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists Award, he was a Chapter Associate Artist (2016-19) and in 2017 he received a Creative Wales Award. He is a co-organiser of the NAWR concert series in Swansea.

Rhodri's uitgebreide muziekoutput is te vinden op zijn Bandcamp en er is nog veel meer informatie te vinden op zijn website.

Rhodri speelt op KRAAK Festival 2025 ~ de dagtickets zijn uitverkocht, maar je kunt nog avondtickets bemachtigen!