Elaine Mitchener vocalist; Gordon Mackay violin; Mira Benjamin violin; Bridget Carey viola; Anton Lukoszevieze cello; Neil Charles double bass

Elaine Mitchener is an experimental vocalist, movement artist and composer whose work encompasses improvisation, contemporary music theatre and performance art. Today’s eclectic programme includes Charles Mingus’ String Quartet No. 1, which was commissioned in 1972 by the Whitney Museum of American Art and Christan Wolff’s powerful setting of text by Susan Griffin about Harriet Tubman, a former slave in the USA who risked her life and freedom to bring others out of slavery via the ‘Underground Railway’.