MEZZO soprano Loré Lixenberg hosts SINGLR An Appera, an experimental sound event, at the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York, on Sunday at 8pm.
Developed at the University of York, the world’s first contemporary music experimental voice Appera – a cross between an app and an opera! – comes to St Margaret’s Church for one night only.
The stories presented on stage recount the first meetings of participants in a specially created purely vocal dating app, SINGLR.
SINGLR ponders: What kind of voice do you like? Low growly voices or high and pure? Are you a fan of a throaty, husky sound or a voice as clear and sonorous as a bell? What would be the outcome if we chose who to be with on the basis of the voice and vocal creativity, rather than the usual parameters of visual appearance, income and what kind of pizza someone prefers?
“For the audience, the SINGLR salon will be a fabulous dreamlike musical evening where ambient electronic tracks and live musicians accompany the vocalised conversations of the SINGLR app participants,” says Lydia Cottrell, of York event organisers SLAP.
Tickets can be booked on 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk on a Pay What You Can basis: £2, £4, £6, £8 or £10.
Them There Then That, Tabitha Grove’s story about stories, tours Explore York York libraries for Big City Read through October
IN a second SLAP event, Big City Read 2022 artist-in-residence Tabitha Grove is exploring the beauty of the way that everything holds a story in Them There Then That, on tour at Explore York Libraries on various dates until October 30.
This new solo performance is inspired by Behind The Scenes At The Museum, York shopkeeper’s daughter Kate Atkinson’s 1995 debut novel, wherein she depicts the experiences of Ruby Lennox, a girl from a working-class English family living in Atkinson’s home city.
“It isn’t just books that hold our stories. It’s the people. It’s the places. It’s the times. It’s the objects around us,” says the event blurb.
“We’ve all created stories from the moment that we could. We haven’t always written them though. We’ve drawn them, we’ve spoken them and we’ve sung them. And the point of all this? To share them.”
In doing so, “if we listen carefully enough, these tales can even help us create our own stories”.
Tabitha will be performing “a story about stories” at Tang Hall Explore Library tomorrow, 11am to 12 noon; Hungate Reading Café, October 26, 7pm to 8pm; Dringhouses Library, October 29, 1pm to 1.30pm, and York Explore Library, October 30, 2pm to 3pm. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, starting at free, at slapyork.co.uk/events?tag=TTTT.