Dark Inventions is an artist-led performer-composer collective, whose work encompasses curation, composition, performance and outreach.
The group's major projects include: Mechanical Asychronicity (an exploration of graphic scores created from the Nottingham Lace Archive); Score to Sound (a series of concerts, outreach events, funded by the AHRC); Firewheel (a composer-led programme of new works, leading to a tour and professional development project with a publisher); and performances at venues and festivals across the UK, including Capstone Theatre (Liverpool), Coastival (Scarborough), Engine House (Manchester), The Forge, Camden (London), Lit & Phil (Newcastle), and York Spring Festival.
Formed in 2012 by composer-conductor Christopher Leedham and composer-analyst Martin Scheuregger, the group brings together performers, composers and researchers with a diverse range of experience as a genuinely cross-genre and collaborative collective. The group’s early projects include: a theatrical production of Pierrot Lunaire in a new English translation (National Centre for Early Music, 2013); appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe performing two new works from Scottish composer Neil Thomas Smith (St Mary’s Cathedral, 2014); and a tour of the North of England featuring a specially-commissioned work from Philip Cashian.
They have produced four CDs of contemporary music, including premiere recordings of works by Judith Weir, Martin Suckling, Philip Cashian, Stef Conner and several emerging composers. They have featured on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and projects have been supported by Arts Council England, Britten-Pears Foundation and Sound and Music. Current work includes a new CD of contemporary clarinet and basset clarinet repertoire, and an ACE-funded collaborative project with artist Danica Maier working on musical responses to the Nottingham Lace Archive.