Sound Poetry
Temporary
In their ongoing collaboration, Andrey Novikov and Valéra Simonchuk combine improvised poetry and music with soundscapes to create immersive experiences for the audience, emphasising the connection that is created in the moment.
Andrey Novikov is a performing musician, classically trained composer and data scientist, who writes music for live acts (respair, Soul Grenades), short films and exhibitions. He also designs interactive sound for art installations (e.g. Noisily, Nowhere and Burning Man).
This is a fragment from the semi-improvised piece “Temporary” that was performed live as part of a headline set at Hold Space poetry night on 10th June 2026.
Prayer for Freedom
This improvisation is based on a fragment from the poem of the same name by Viktoria Amelina, a Ukrainian novelist, poet and war crimes researcher, who was killed by a Russian missile attack on a civilian building in June 2023.
The piece was created and performed live during the recoridng of the podcast Make Poetry Weird Again by Nols Nathankski in London.
“About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: / how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place / While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully / along.” W.H. Auden
With Various Musicians, Poets & Performers
Octave Marathon Fundraiser took place on Sunday 17th May 2026 and was organised by Mikey Kirkpatrick.
Between 2-6pm, local musicians, poets and performers performed a scale from C to C, changing note every half-hour, an octave marathon across four hours to help raise awareness and funds to save the church.
The scale journey to the octave of the root represents a journey that leads us back to where we started, but changed. Taking this journey together is an act of tuning, and the slowness is an act of reclaiming space and time.