About us

CoMA Manchester was revived in March 2020 during the National CoMA Festival and has been rehearsing remotely due to the ongoing pandemic, and more recently in person! Our activities have included Zoom rehearsals, remote recording projects and we particularly enjoyed meeting at Fletcher Moss Park, Didsbury while restrictions were temporarily relaxed in November 2020.

We are an inclusive mixed ensemble who welcome instruments as well as noise-making objects in our group. We have a lot of fun in our rehearsals, and we enjoy chatting as well as making music together!

We meet in person most weeks at the moment in South Manchester. If you’d like to join our rehearsals, get in touch!

Our repertoire over this time has included Sarah Hennies’ Growing Block and Everything Else,  Paul Newland’s Locus, James Saunders’ they are always different, they are always the same and Michael Parson’s Rhythmic Canons, among others.

To find out more about us or join, email us at manchester@coma.org. Some of our members are remote only members at the moment – if this sounds more comfortable, let us know and we’ll be very happy to include you in whatever way we can.

News

Summer is here, and the return of live music is well underway. We are beyond thrilled to announce that a mini CoMA Manchester festival will be happening this August in real life, generously supported by Arts Council England. We will also be working with the landscape charity Groundwork to deliver a community-based weekend of events considering Manchester’s ‘blue space’, as well as collectively listening to the sounds and values the compelling and extensive waterways our city has to offer.

But we still need you help! Our programme will feature a new commissioned piece made by an established local composer / artist. To fulfil the conditions of our funding, part of the commission fee will need to be sourced from within the community. Please check out our crowdfunding page, and consider to contribute as much or as little as you would like. Any help would be hugely appreciated by all of us at the group and the artist we will be working with.

We can’t wait to bring the festival to life, and to celebrate the joy of living in Manchester with you all.

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Over January to February 2021 we put together content for our premiere performance in the RNCM’s digital PLAY Festival. Our programme featured Chris Hobb’s Walk Event, Ellen Sargen’s Song for CoMA, Bofan Ma’s Upfold, Downfold, Unfold and Amber Priestley’s Is this the correct amount of social distancing? This concert was premiered on the 18th of April.

Rehearsal Dates

Here are our pencilled-in dates for upcoming rehearsals for our summer project. Anyone is welcome, and if you’d like to join, get in touch! We will only meet for a selection of these dates so make sure to get in touch beforehand to get the latest information.

• Thursday 22nd July (in person, 19:00-21:00, venue TBC)
• Saturday 24th July (in person, venue TBC)
• Sunday 1st August (in person, venue TBC)
• Thursday 5th August (in person, venue TBC)
• Sunday 8th August (in person, venue TBC)
• Thursday 12th August (in person, venue TBC)
• Sunday 15th August (in person, venue TBC)
• Thursday 19th August (in person, venue TBC)
• Saturday 21st August (in person, venue TBC)
• Sunday 22nd August (in person, venue TBC)

Contact

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