Outcasts to Icons

ZRI’s unique sound takes on Ravel, Satie and Janáček to reclaim the subversive pulse at their core. Maurice Ravel was the son of an inventor of machinery for Barnum’s circus, expelled from the Paris Conservatoire twice, systematically denied the conventional recognition of the Prix de Rome, and his unorthodox home-education included an early introduction to Erik Satie, whose provocatively avant-garde stance he valued throughout his life. Janáček for his part was from a village background, got expelled from college in Prague, and his extraordinary originality was only recognised when he reached his sixties. ZRI’s sonic reconfigurations present the classical music outcasts that became icons reaching back into the soundscapes that informed these pieces when they were first heard, vibrant and untamed.