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 decade, 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 extensive music output can be found on his Bandcamp, and a lot more info on his website.
Rhodri plays KRAAK Festival 2025 ~ full day tickets are sold out but you can still nab some night tickets here!