I made it to the Unitarian Church on Stephen’s Green last night to what is best described as Boys Night in the Ergodos Festival. A brilliantly programmed concert, Expressway To Yr Skull featured five works (all written by male composers) performed by five guys on electric guitars and drums. I realise, of course, that this may be coming across as tinged with female chauvinism but in no way did the “boys night” feel to the evening detract from my ability to enjoy the concert.
Festival co-director Benedict Schlepper-Connolly welcomed the audience and also prepared us for the likelihood that they would spend a large portion of the evening tweaking guitar strings as, through “some stroke of genius”, they managed to programme five works in five different tunings (actually it was more than five tunings as in a couple of the works there were two or three tunings used!). The first work was a duet between Connolly and the work’s composer Brian Ledwidge Flynn. I am a big fan of Flynn’s music (and I am comfortable saying this despite being a friend of his) and mentioned his Abraxas project in an earlier post. Last night’s work Zeitgeber Gears was another demonstration of his versatility as a composer. I would like to reprint the programme notes here as they illustrate the work perfectly (which is not always the case with programme notes) but suffice to say, the four movements, or “tracks”, tease the listener as they evoke half-remembered B-sides from early 90’s alternative rock.
I found Brian Bridges Infraction for electric guitar and strings a difficult work to appreciate. An expression of deviation from western tonality, my initial impression was that of my great-grandmothers old button accordion, which was desperately out of tune but could produce the most amazing sounds if you ignored diatonic tonality.
Simon O’Connor explored the “magic line” of sound produced by electric guitar in prolonged notes on two guitars, building one note on each guitar to the point of breaking before releasing tension with a new note on the other guitar. This continued and the piece grew into repeated rhythms and long sustained notes.
After a brief skip out into the rain for the smokers, the concert continued with Larry Polansky’s ii-v-i, a beautiful exercise in tuning and loop pedals for solo guitar and ended with Electric Guitar Quartet by festival co-director Garrett Sholdice. After a bewilderingly extended set-up time and tuning, the guitars finally settled into what seemed like random note and rhythm patterns but what resolved into the creation of a distinct melodic atmosphere. In an inspired move Sholdice invited drummer Dennis Cassidy to perform with the quartet. Cassidy is a pleasure to watch as he works hard to produce the most gentle and delicate of sounds, supporting the four guitars in their efforts.
The 2009 Dublin Handel Festival came to a close last night with a performance by Anthony Marwood and the Irish Chamber Orchestra (ICO) in the National Concert Hall. The programme was not entirely works by Handel but was a mixture of Baroque, Romantic and Contemporary works. They opened with Handel’s Concerto Grosso in A Op. 6 No. 11 and the smiling members of the orchestra seemed to thoroughly enjoy the work, in particular the last Allegro section. Marwood conducted the performance with his entire body, his foot occasionally stamping the beginning of a passage.
I hadn’t had a chance to look at the programme and was surprised and delighted by the appearance of Irish composer John Kinsella among the baroque and romantic composers. There was no smiling among the orchestral members for Kinsella’s Prelude and Toccata as the low rapid phrases forced all performers into intense concentration. The fast paced work was sufficiently controlled by Marwood and the clarity on the lower notes, even with mutes, promoted the dark atmosphere.
After the concentrated effort of the Kinsella the orchestra seemed less invested in Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No 12 in G Minor. The work was professionally executed but unremarkable among the intensity of the other works.
Marwood was been Artistic Director of the ICO for three years and has a full A4 page of experience and awards but Schumann’s Violin Concerto in A Op. 129 was a serious challenge even for someone of his experience. He accepted the challenge head on and the taxing solo passages seemed to exhaust the man. Supported by the orchestra he executed two outstanding climbing passages which gave me butterflies in my tummy and reminded me why Schumann is hailed as one of the great romantics. Marwood looked delighted with himself and well he might as the control he demonstrated in the Sehr lebhaft section before easing the orchestra into the delicacy of the final phrases.
Following the intensity of the Schumann the relief was palpable as the always-elegant Rachel Factor rejoined the orchestra on harpsichord for a selection from the Water Music Suite in F major. There was an initial struggle between strings and wind with tempo but that quickly settled bringing the evening and the 2009 Dublin Handel Festival to a smiling close.
The Kevin Barry room in the National Concert Hall was last night host to Gamelan Sekar Petak (“for all your York based gamelan needs…”), an orchestra of Javanese gamelan housed in University of York. The orchestra consists of almost thirty performers, including director Neil Sorrell, and performed a works by Irish and international composers. I was maddened because the gradual onset of the flu over the past few days reached its peak yesterday and I was forced to admit defeat at the interval. I did however catch five pieces in the Ergodos festival performance before my concentration completely evaporated.
The relatively small (in concert hall terms) Kevin Barry room was packed prompting Festival co-Director Garrett Scholdice to proclaim “My goodness there’s loads of ye!” Scholdice then called on the 150 strong audience to kick off the performance in the first work by Jody Diamond Preclude: Anyone Can Play. No shy audience we!, about 20 people were immediately out of their seats and on the stage with the gamelan. The next few minutes consisted of a jumble of sounds as the gongs and metallophones suffered the inexpert hands of the audience members. Members of the orchestra relieved them one at a time and the sound gradually moved towards the rhythmical structured sounds of a traditional gamelan pieces.
Between the works the performers swapped seats at the individual instruments, which gives a communal feel to the performances that I always adored about gamelan. The second work by Lou Harrison involved cello and violin parts and consisted of repeated phrases on both gamelan and strings. The repetition proved meditative and the length of the work prompted the audience to relax into the music.
I have always been fascinated by the music of Peter Moran since first hearing his work a couple of years ago which was reinforced by Crash Ensemble’s performance of A Casual Analysis of Prose Rhythms in June 2008. His piece for gamelan Bonang Quartet #2 did not disappoint. The carefully controlled and fast-paced first section of the work developed into a restrained section focused around the texture and dynamics of four metallophones. The work was actually enhanced by Moran’s sharp intake of breath counting the measures during the faster section and the intense concentration of the four performers (Moran included) held the room in a state of tension.
It was that same tension I was expecting of Daniel March’s work Pieces of Five and Tree. Described as concentrating on gaps and omissions or empty spaces in architectural and literary terms, the work is a slow moving piece with short silences. A wonderful consequence of silence in music is the tension felt by the audience – the need to maintain that silence in a room of 150 people. I feel this was lost in March’s work as the silences felt more like breaks between movements as the performers relaxed before the next section rather than holding themselves in a state of readiness.
The final piece before the interval was that of composer Emily Crossland who surprised me with how young she is when she stood up to take a bow at the end of the piece. Unfortunately at this point my flu-addled brain had begun it’s meltdown but I was still able to appreciate the complexity of the full gamelan orchestra with added vocal sounds of the performers.
There is another performance of Gamelan Sekar Petak this evening at 8.30pm in the National Concert Hall as a part of the Ergodos Festival and I would recommend everyone avail of this rare opportunity to hear the full set.
On Tuesday evening next Improvised Music Company (IMC) present way out west, a showcase of jazz from Ireland. IMC have offered readers of this wee blog a pair of tickets to the launch and a copy of the way out west CD. The launch includes performances by Metier, Francesco Turrisi Trio, Trihornophone, Dorothy Murphy’s Circleways, Mike Nielsen and Organics. A stellar line-up by any gig standards, the evening will be a great celebration of Irish jazz. Leave a comment on this post to be in with a chance to win the tickets and CD! (I wanted to come up with a more fun way to win but it’s been a verrrrry long day.)
I’m going to be a little late for the gig as I’ll be coming from the Rastrelli Quartet presented by Music Network in the Coach House. I work part-time with Music Network managing the Music Capital Scheme and one of the perks of the job is working on the wonderful concerts in the Coach House.
In other notes, Caoimhín O’ Raghallaigh performed a solo set tonight at the launch of the first Ergodos Festival Off Grid in the hushed surroundings of the Unitarian Church. The festival is running in the National Concert Hall and the Unitarian Church until Saturday 25 April. In addition to a whole heap of performances there are workshops and talks and I’m going to try to make it to as many of the events as possible although it’ll be a challenge! In the CEC (Current Economic Crisis!!!) it’s a relief to get a festival pass for all events priced at a wallet friendly €39. Get ‘em while they’re hot!
I got an email from Darragh Doyle about the launch of Infectious Stay Away at the Science Gallery which was open to members and bloggers and popped in yesterday evening to check it out. It’s the first time I ever had to queue to get into a launch and thought it a little pretentious until I realised the reason for the delay – all members were given masks and were scanned for infectious diseases before being allowed to enter the exhibition! It was all very serious and we were warned to wear our masks at all times and were given tags to monitor our movements at all times. (The tag blinks when activated and is still blinking on the couch here beside me this morning – a little unnerving…)
The exhibition itself relied heavily on gimicks and the novelty factor of pieces such as the Immune Lab which offered participants the opportunity to check their own DNA for immunity to diseases. One of the more interesting works was Fugue, a collaboration between visual artist Gordana Novakovic and composer Rainer Linz. Linz wasn’t credited in the Science Gallery exhibition, something which Novakovic was eager to amend when I spoke with her about the work. Fugue is a smaller version of a large installation which Novakovic and Linz have been working on for five years. Based on the functioning of the human immune system the visuals and music respond to the artificial changes created by complex scientific software. Read more about Fugue Arts here.
Infectious Stay Away is running in the Science Gallery until 17 July – pop in and have your lips monitored for infectious diseases!
