Hosted at the Union Chapel in Islington and organised by the good people over at Arctic Circle, this week saw a series of performances collected under the Marginalised banner, in support of the Margins Project, an charity operating from the back of the Union Chapel for people who are homeless or in crisis in London, with performances by Gavin Bryars and Max Richter and events focusing on the music of Vernon Elliot and Michael Nyman. Before the performance took place, an introduction to the charity was presented to the audience in the form of a short film, highlighting the need for such an organisation in the area, the relentless work of voluntaries and the major drop in donations resulting of the current economic climate. Marginalised, in its second year, gives a chance to put on a program of events and generate some revenue for Margins.

While he has worked with an impressive number of musicians and bands over the years, including regular collaborations with Future Sound Of London and production work for Vashti Bunyan and Kelli Ali, Richter came to the attention of most with his neo-classical work, collected on a handful of albums released since 2002. His debut, Memoryhouse, originally published on the BBC’s now defunct Late Junction imprint, is in the process of being made available once again through Fat-Cat. For this performance, Richter, on piano, keyboard and electronics, was joined on stage by a string quintet.

During the first half of the performance, Richter and his ensemble brought some of his early compositions together, lifted from Memoryhouse as well as The Blue Notebooks and Songs From Before, giving a comprehensive overview of his work up to now and introducing the second half of the evening. New piece From The Art Of Mirrors, commissioned by Fuse06 to accompany some rarely seen super8 footage by experimental British film maker Derek Jarman, opened with recordings of fire crackling over distant voices, eventually relayed on screen by hugely distorted images of a small burning fire. The announced film sequences only materialised intermittently, predominantly during Richter’s solo contributions, leaving the focus on the performers for most of the orchestral parts.

There was here a much deeper emphasis on Richter’s atmospheric side than on previous works, especially as pictures of a galaxy were superimposed with flickering images of people walking on beaches, derelict houses or deserted landscapes. The string formation was not left out of the equation entirely, far from it. As the atmospheric components retreated, they wove beautiful layers around moving chords, at times accentuating the emotional scope of the images projected on screen, at others creating delicate brushes to soften their impact. Using many of Richter’s traditional themes and chord progressions, From The Art Of Mirrors also introduced some interesting new elements, especially on the latter part, where the pace picked up greatly from the initial rampant melancholy to develop into much more sweeping and, toward the end, rather vigorous moments.

In recent years, Max Richter has written scores for a number of soundtracks, giving the natural emotional landscapes of his work an appropriate outlet. In this particular context, it is very much Derek Jarman’s disjointed and often odd films which were given a poignant slant, Richter’s nuanced music creating subtle shaded areas where Jarman’s images at times appeared harsh, while his extensive electronics worked to give strength to some of the most disturbing moments.

Max Richter | Max Richter (MySpace) | Fat-Cat Records | Union Chapel | Margins Project