‘British soul sensation’ Hannah Williams (vocals) and composer Benjamin Oliver (piano/electronics) perform music inspired by, or created with, AI.
The programme features cabaret number How Could You Prefer It To Me? by Bella Barlow and Drew Crawford, Anna Appleby’s ‘Reservoir’, selections from Jennifer Walshe’s ‘A Late Anthology of Early Music Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance’ and a new version of Oliver’s song cycle ‘Love Letters’.
Premiered and recorded by Williams and Riot Ensemble in 2023, ‘Love Letters’ includes melancholic, absurd and dramatic expressions of love made with LovelaceGPT, an AI text generation model developed by University of Southampton researchers.
Been working on a new version of Love Letters for me to play (piano/electronics) with Hannah Williams. Had a good first rehearsal yesterday on it. I need to practise! We will play the premiere at a new University of Southampton festival focused around AI Arts on 2 June alongside music by Anna Appleby and Drew Crawford/Bella Barlow. Music by Jennifer Walshe will also feature.
Was a total joy working with the amazing Hannah Williams, awesome musicians from Riot Ensemble and a brilliant research team from the University of Southampton on the ‘Love Letters [with AI]’ project. Ash Sealy (@whatabouttheash) captured the London gig fantastically. I’m really proud of this project and especially my new 7-song cycle Love Letters. We recorded it between the two performances too and the cycle will feature on my portrait album. Too Many Sweets, next year…
Hannah Williams (vocals), George Barton (percussion), Adam Swayne & Siwan Rhys (piano), Aaron Holloway-Nahum (sound), Stephanie Lamprea (soprano), Prof. Will MaySam Wilson
Super excited about the upcoming premiere performances of my new song cycle, Love Letters, for Hannah Williams and Riot Ensemble. The texts for the songs have been created by a new AI language model – LovelactGPT. You can hear it at Turner Sims (17 July) and Kings Place (19 July). Come!
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