Birmingham Record Company (BRC), established by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2013 to promote new music being created by the conservatoire’s composition department, has signed a distribution deal with the NMC Recordings, through which NMC will re-release the BRC back-catalogue through their own distribution networks.
Micro-operas, football and yoga
BRC’s stated mission is ‘to present eclectic new releases by artists who challenge, innovate and transform ideas of music today, and celebrate off-beat work that sits between genres. Alongside 12-minute micro-operas and Country-and-Western piano quintets, listeners are likely to find music structured around famous football matches, recordings of 1920s mechanical dancehall organs, and story-telling in yoga positions.’
The company has produced five releases so far, including music from the dynamic Dutch ensemble Orkest de Ereprijs, Swedish guitar collective Ensemble Krock and Irish duo Mary Dullea and Darragh Morgan, as well as collaborations with German choreographer Sebastian Matthias and home-grown talent including clarinettist Jack McNeill, Cobalt Duo and Decibel.
2 May 2019 will see an all-day event take place at the Conservatoire to celebrate the partnership with NMC, featuring concerts and talks from artists on the label and giving audiences an exclusive preview of the new music that will be released over the coming months.
New releases for 2019
Coming up there will be a new release in May 2019 of a multifaceted concert-event Catalogue d’Emojis, and a further new release in October called Voyage Foog, Phat Moog exploring the electro-acoustic world of the world-famous Moog analogue synthesiser. In addition to this a series of singles will be released throughout the year from Conservatoire alumni and friends.
Whilst the label has initially focused on the music of Conservatoire staff members, the goal is to open the label to both graduates and students who have the ambition to release challenging and high-quality creative performances into the wider world. By doing so, BRC will shine a light on one of the most dynamic and original music scenes in the UK today.
