User:Gentle Fire Group/sandbox

Gentle Fire was an ensemble dedicated to the performance of experimental music from the 1960s and 70s.
It was an early exponent of live electronic music, utilising both conventional and home-built instruments and electronics. It was formed in 1968 at the University of York, U.K. by a small group of music students – Richard Bernas, Patrick Harrex, Graham Hearn and Stuart Jones and one lecturer – Richard Orton, who shared an enthusiasm for the music of John Cage and his circle. Working together and wondering about the next step, the I-Ching, or Chinese Book of Changes, was consulted, and the hexagram of the family was obtained. The name Gentle Fire is derived from the hexagram’s two component trigrams. Soon afterwards, Orton invited London-based Hugh Davies to join the group, Harrex left after two concerts and Michael Robinson, another York music student, joined. After Orton left in late 1971, the group became a settled quintet of Bernas (piano, percussion), Davies (self-built instruments, electronics), Hearn (VCS 3 synthesiser, recorder, keyboards), Jones (trumpet, cello) and Robinson (cello, electronics). The group played at numerous concerts and festivals in the UK (Glastonbury 1971, Aberdeen University 1974, Gawthorpe Festival, Blackburn, Lancs 1974) and mainland Europe (Berlin 1971,1972, 1973, Cologne 1972, Munich Cultural Olympics (1972) Shiraz-Persepolis Festival, Iran, (1972), La Rochelle 1974, La Sainte Baume (1975), and they participated in all the early performances of Stockhausen’s Sternklang, from its première in Berlin in 1971 to the LP recording in Paris in 1975. Other notable premières given by the group include the UK première of Mauricio Kagel’s Transición II (London, Purcell Room 1972) and the world première of Stockhausen’s Spektren (Shiraz-Persepolis Festival, 1972). They participated in the European première of Cage and Lejaren Hiller's HPSCHD (Philharmonie, Berlin 1972), and the world première of Stockhausen's Aphabet für Liège (1972). Their last performance was at a festival in Harrogate, Yorkshire (UK) in 1975.

Gentle Fire’s repertoire was wide-ranging, encompassing text scores, graphic scores and part-notated scores by members of the group, as well as by leading figures such as John Cage, Christian Wolff, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Toshi Ichiyanagi (with some of whom they enjoyed close working relationships). They also pioneered a set of Group Compositions: loose frameworks for controlled improvisation, two of which (Nos 3 and 4) were focused round a set of large suspended metal grids called the gHong (designed and built by Robinson incorporating elements suggested by Davies). This instrument was amplified through contact microphones and played by all group members.

In their quest to integrate the sounds of ‘normal’ instruments with those of electronics and built instruments, they developed a range of extended techniques e.g. prepared cello, semi- submerged trumpet, simultaneously singing and playing a wind instrument (jazz ‘dirt’), many of which are now standard elements of the technical repertoire of classical musicians who intend to play contemporary music.