When a twenty-minute piece takes two weeks to rehearse is an audience robbed of some of the richness of their experience by not witnessing that creative journey? For 48 Hours, Vonnegut Collective worked collaboratively with composer Tullis Rennie. Together they documented the trajectory of the rehearsal process and the motivations of the performers as the group tackled their most challenging work to date - Thomas Adès’s Piano Quintet. Recordings from rehearsals and interviews with players are woven through improvised interpretations of a new graphic score for the quintet, combined with trumpet and electronics. In 48 Hours, Rennie and the Vonnegut Collective play with perspective, observation and interpersonal experience, providing the listener with a unique insight into contemporary music making.  

Vonnegut Collective is a multifaceted ensemble, making new music and telling stories through creative collaborations with artists from a broad range of genres in the concert hall and the community. Formed in 2014 by two members of the BBC Philharmonic, we aim to explore and create new music in a way that is relevant to all. Our carefully crafted recitals and community work facilitate creative music-making, storytelling and free expression through structured and improvised sound, giving everyone the chance to experience new music, their music, either made by them or for them. 

Tullis Rennie is a composer, improvising trombonist, electronic musician and field recordist. "...Rennie foregrounds the act of listening as an active component in the creation of musical experience” - The Wire Magazine His work has been presented at concerts and festivals across 20 countries worldwide, alongside UK national broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and ResonanceFM. He is co-founder of Walls On Walls with visual artist Laurie Nouchka, and a member of the Insectotròpics audio-visual collective, based in Barcelona. He curates the multi.modal label with Claudia Molitor. His writing has been published in Organised Sound and Leonardo Music Journal. He features on releases by the Luminous label, ZeroWave and Efpi Records. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Music at City, University of London. He completed a PhD in Composition at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast.  

Thomas Adès was born in London in 1971.  Renowned as both composer and performer, he works regularly with the world’s leading orchestras, opera companies and festivals.  His compositions include three operas : the most recent of which The Exterminating Angel premiered at the 2016 Salzburg Festival and subsequently has been performed at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the Royal Opera House, London all conducted by the composer; The Tempest (Royal Opera House and Metropolitan Opera); and Powder Her Face.  In 2015 he was awarded the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize and in Spring 2020 he will receive the Toru Takemitsu composition award at Tokyo Opera City where he will conduct a concert of his own music.