Monday Platform, Wigmore Hall - 06.04.2009

juice - Anna Snow, Sarah Dacey and Kerry Andrew

The Times 08.04.2009

Rarely does the Wigmore pulsate to the music of Japanese hip-hop DJs, recast for female vocal trio. Perhaps it should. Those old string quartets are all very well. But to hear these a cappella voices racing through the culture-hopping hemiolas of Stephen Hatfield’s Three Ways to Vacuum Your House or James Lindsay’s frenetic Sanbiki no kashikoi saru (a homage to DJ Krush, the star of Japan’s drum’n’bass scene) is to be transported to a very different and very exciting universe.

The trio is called Juice. If that implies something fluid, fruity and refreshing, it is apt. Their repertoire extends from classy takes on jazz standards and dark folk songs (Sarah Dacey’s Cruel Mother sent a chill up the spine) to longer pieces using avant-garde vocal techniques - patter, huffing, puffing, beatboxing - that make Stockhausen or Berio sound prehistoric.

Gabriel Prokofiev’s Simple Songs for Modern Life, settings of exasperated exclamations of urban angst, was perhaps over-extended, though hypnotically patterned. But I loved Robert Fokkens’s Words, which was just that: each song a surreal deconstruction of a single word, drawn from the various native languages of this young South African. The last was “sheepdip”, which triggered a hilarious fantasia of baas and bleats. Juice, who do nearly everything from memory and with perfect intonation, are the 21st century’s answer to the Swingles or King’s Singers - and deserve to be as famous. (Richard Morrison)

Flights into Darkness: Jacqueline du Pre Music Building, Oxford - 27.03.2009

Tom Frankland (actor) and Jakob Fichert (piano)

Oxford Daily Info 30.03.2009

Based on Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray and supposedly taking it’s name from Flight into Darkness by Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler, Flights into Darkness is a highly original production devised by Tom Frankland, Jakob Fichert and Robert Fokkens that combines both musical and spoken dramatics.

Whilst Pianist Jakob Fichert seats himself at the grand piano stationed on one side of the stage, Tom Frankland marches to centre stage and launches almost immediately into a booming philosophical monologue of the sort that Wilde was renowned for. This set up remains in place throughout the piece as Frankland weaves his animated way between the works of both Wilde and Schnitzler with such power and stage presence that it is almost impossible not to be completely enthralled by his performance. As for Jakob Fichert, he succeeds in keeping up with Frankland’s fast-paced ranting and also the more pensive moments and sets the atmosphere with his piano accompaniment, which serves to dial up and then relieve tension whenever necessary.

As Flights into Darkness is a collaborative piece of music and drama, the musical score itself plays an integral part. Fokkens’ original score compliments the production perfectly, signalling the dripping blood from one imagined victim before rushing into panicked movements as Frankland’s character descends into madness.

...At one point, Frankland leaps from the stage and charges into the audience, as Fichert stands from his seat, thus turning the theatre into a courtroom, the audience into jury members and Fichert into a judge as Frankland stands on trial for murder. Although this imaginative use of the audience is very pleasing, it does come as quite a surprise and leaves one wondering what exactly is going on with the plot!

All in all, the sheer originality and guts of the piece make it well worth seeing...

The Cutting Edge Tour 2009: The Artrix, Bromsgrove - 30.01.2009

Claire Booth (soprano) and Andrew Matthews-Owen (piano)

Birmingham Post 04.02.2009

Two commissioned first performances graced this evening. First, a fascinating depiction of post-war liberation struggles in Robert Fokkens’ Afrika (sic). This began with the charm of a mesmerising rocking rhythm leading to angst and passion...

Park Lane Group New Year Series, Purcell Room - 07.01.2009

Clariphonics Clarinet Quartet

The Times 09.01.2009

...Soprano and pianist shared their recital with the feisty clarinet quartet Clariphonics, who set themselves almost every challenge in the book in a programme that ranged from Sadie Harrison’s Scathach (pibroch meets martial arts), to the work that inspired their name, Dai Fujikura’s Clari4onics. Best of all was the world premiere of Glimpses of a half-forgotten future by the South African composer Robert Fokkens: sad, strange and scarcely five minutes’ worth of unquiet fragments that expressed more than anything else they had played (Hilary Finch)

The Guardian 09.01.2009

...In Glimpses of a Half-Forgotten Future, by the South African Robert Fokkens, quarter-tone chords interrupted the minimalist doodling of the main idea to disturbing effect. Throughout these, and similarly brief pieces by Sadie Harrison, Dai Fujikura, Anna Meredith and Jim Pywell, Clariphonics delivered spirited musicianship... (George Hall)

Musical Pointers 12.01.2009

...Fokkens’s Glimpses of a half-forgotten future began nicely, but innocuously, with a folky little melody passed between three clarinets. It grabbed my attention when this was abruptly shoved against a thick, static, microtonal chord, and held it rapt as the two elements alternated in quiet procession, the microtonal kinks slowly infecting the folky melody.

Classical Source 10.01.2009

 ...the textural resource of Robert Fokkens’s Glimpses of a half-forgotten future (2008), the sheer rhythmic verve of Anna Meredith’s Four to the Floor (2005) and the emphasis on purely ’ensemble values’ in Jim Pywell’s Three Beginnings (1996) each made a highly effective showcase.

Park Lane Group New Year Series, Purcell Room - 07.01.2008

juice - Anna Snow, Sarah Dacey and Kerry Andrew

The Times 09.01.2008

...female vocal trio called juice (trendy lower-case name, naturally) proved as tangy as their moniker.

They have light, folky voices and a delightful manner: big smiles; music memorised so that they communicate directly. But there’s nothing casual about their technical skills. They breezed through the brilliant, Berio-like vocal effects of a piece called luna-cy by one of their members, Kerry Andrew, then deftly sang two exquisite carols by Nicola LeFanu.

Later they displayed their theatre skills in six surreal melodramas from Roger Marsh’s Pierrot Lunaire - with another composer, Robert Fokkens, matching them histrionic for histrionic as a highly-wrought narrator. The latter’s own wittily minimalist Words, James Lindsay’s rap-inspired Sanbiki no Kashikoi Saru, and two well-crafted songs by Piers Hellawell completed the contribution of a group that could have a big future in cabaret... (Richard Morrison) 

Fresh Young Musicians’ Platform, Purcell Room - 03.05.2006

Harriet Mackenzie - violin, Timothy Murray - conductor, New Professionals Orchestra (An Eventful Morning)          

The Times 05.05.2006

Fokkens has his own engaging quirkiness, and this short, two-movement work always gripped the ear. Tiny melodic motifs are constantly developed by the soloist, as intriguing orchestral textures rise or fall beneath. The music never settles in metre and style, though some frenetic, Turnage-style big-band riffs and blaring brass refrains of what sound like the Dies Irae theme increasingly dominate. It was all impeccably prepared. I’d like to hear it again. (Richard Morrison)

Park Lane Group Monday Platform at the Wigmore Hall - 09.02.2004

Harriet Mackenzie – violin, Chris Glynn – piano (Irreconcilable Truths)

Camden New Journal 12.02.2004

Ms MacKenzie’s playing in the second half was…assured. I was a bit wary of Robert Fokkens’ 2002 work Irreconcilable Truths for Violin and Piano. In his programme notes he says that his “concern is the moment of collision”. An excuse for excessive, uncomfortable dissonance, surely. But in fact the piece was the highlight of the evening.

An Tuireann Centre, Portree, Skye - 28.08.2003

Illegal Harmony String Trio (Postcards from Beyond the Pale)

West Highland Free Press 28.08.2003

Robert Fokkens’ Postcards from Beyond the Pale are five brief musical statements, each characterised by the exploration of one simple idea. These added a welcome touch of humour to the programme.

Park Lane Group New Year Series 2003 - 06.01.2003

Harriet Mackenzie – violin, Chris Glynn – piano (Irreconcilable Truths)

The Guardian 08.01.2003 (Tim Ashley)

The new work for Mackenzie and Glynn, meanwhile, was Irreconcilable Truths by the South African Robert Fokkens, an irresolute duel that alternates flaring violence with timeless limpidity.

The Times - 08.01.2003

(Mackenzie) and Glynn were excellent in the premiere of Irreconcilable Truths by the South African Robert Fokkens, which contrasted violent scurryings with passages of Zen-like calm.

http://www.classicalsource.com

Robert Fokkens’s Irreconcilable Truths made moving emotional capital out of the tonal disparity between violin and piano…

Almeida Festival at King’s Cross 2002 - 29.06.2002

The Gallimaufry Ensemble (The Truth Will Set You Free?)

http://www.classicalsource.com

Robert Fokkens’s thoughtful and harmonically-dense study in opposites…