In February 2012, Ada sketches will be dramatised and presented at the Royal Opera House’s Exposure: Opera with singer Loré Lixenberg directed by John Lloyd Davies, as part of the work’s ongoing development.

Part of The Lovelace Trilogy, Ada sketches (libretto by Laura Tunbridge) is a short dramatic vocal work in which Ada Lovelace – immersed in calculations – imagines that the Analytical Engine (a forerunner of computer programming) might compose music. In 2011, there were several concert perfomances of Ada sketches including at SOUNDINGS with Loré Lixenberg at the Austrian Cultural Forum (May) and Kings Place (December) as well as with the Platypus Ensemble in Vienna and Prague (November).

“Howard's Ada sketches ... one of a number of very fine pieces ... pictures Ada Lovelace dreaming that her (and Babbage's) analytical engine – an early computer – produced notes instead of numbers. Typical of Howard in its minute theatricality, it is a gentle affair, with sparse, dreamy textures for flute and clarinet and a vocal line, sung by Loré Lixenberg, that moves from speech to song and prose to verse (and back again). The percussion part, devised by Adam Clifford, deploys flower pots and a torn cymbal to intriguing effect.”

Guy Dammann, The Guardian, 07.12.11

Full details for this event can be found here