Second Square To None

Interesting program for the next Free State concert by the Crash Ensemble that includes SSTN-friend Amanda Feery with a great piece for bass clarinet called 'Rattle'. You can hear this piece below performed by Paul Roe.

Rattle (for Bass Clarinet) by amandafeery

Crash Ensemble continues its commitment to showcasing the work of Ireland’s brightest composers in Free State VI, paying homage to new talent in this annual concert.

For one night only, the Irish Museum of Modern Art will play host to a full spectrum of Irish contemporary talent, ranging from Judith Ring’s ‘Up to My F-holes’ for solo cello and tape to Andrew Hamilton’s ‘Music for People Who Like Art’ for full ensemble and soprano. This concert will also feature the world premiere of a new piece by Dan Trueman, specially commissioned for Free State VI by Crash Ensemble.

It's on Friday 1 April, 2011 at IMMA with tickets €20/15. IMMA works really well as a venue for Crash stuff, Rothko Chapel sounded great out there.

Check www.crashensemble.com or the event Facebook page for more information.

NOTE: Show in Castlebar has been cancelled. More info on crashensemble.com.


NOTE: Show in Dun Laoghaire has been moved to Belvedere College off of Parnell Square in Dublin 1. More info on crashensemble.com.


Encouraged by their unflinching approach to the weather I can say I will be most definitely going to check the Crash Tour out when it stops in Dun Laoghaire on Sunday. Irish composers are strongly represented in the programme with work by Gerald Barry and John Godfrey, as well as the Irish premiere of Donnacha Dennehy's 'As an Nós' (Soundcloud clip below). Am also intrigued to hear the 'Argentinian Klezmer stylings' of Osvaldo Golijov, while the Jacob TV pieces seems to articulate quite nicely why I have a love/hate opinion of contemporary compositional concepts:

The composition is based on sound bytes from the streets of New York: an angry 'evangelist' on Times Square, and a small choir of the Salvation Army. The groove is based on rhythmical baby talk from 2 little girls: 18 months old Welmoed and 2 year old Amber. The work was inspired by the post 9-11 trauma and the role of religion in the history of man:'God kills'. Is Jesus really coming? It is about time...

Description from Jacob TV's Youtube, which has a video of the piece.

For Dun Laoghaire tickets available here, or on 01 231 2929

The tour starts tomorrow in Galway and continues for a very busy week around the country:
Dec 3 : Stranger Folk (Galway) [CANCELLED]
Dec 5 : Stranger Folk (Dun Laoghaire) [VENUE CHANGE]
Dec 6 : Stranger Folk (Castlebar) [CANCELLED]
Dec 8 : Stranger Folk (Tralee)
Dec 9 : Stranger Folk (Cork City)
Dec 11 : Stranger Folk (Newbridge)
Details for all the concerts can be found on the Crash website.

As a Nós by CrashEnsemble

crashensemble.com

More material from Crash, this time in the form of recordings recently uploaded to their Soundcloud account. Great to see them getting some stuff out there for people to hear, the odd play on Lyric just isn't enough. Listening to Shatter for the first time, great piece with lots of nightmarish tension punctuated by explosive dynamic shifts. Streetwalker is a taut rhythmic workout & Music in Similar Motion is Glass at his mesmerising best. All definitely worth a listen. To catch Crash in concert, check their concert listings here.

Tracks and info below taken from the Crash Soundcloud account.

  Shatter by CrashEnsemble

Crash Ensemble commissioned Australian composer Michael Smetanin to write them a piece to be premiered at the Canberra International Music Festival in 2008. The piece, “Shatter”, was hugely successful and broadcast on ABC radio. 

Streetwalker by CrashEnsemble

Composed by Donnacha Dennehy, performed by Crash Ensemble

  Music in Similar Motion by CrashEnsemble

Crash Ensemble's performance of Music in Similar Motion by Philip Glass

Worth checking out Crash Ensemble's updated Youtube channel. Above is an excerpt of them with Iarla Ó Lionáird performing Donnacha Dennehy's Grá agus Bás at the Samuel Beckett Theatre.

  Drift by JNangle

Interesting new piece by Jonathan Nangle (part of the recent Spatial Music Collective event in Severed Head I think), info taken from his Soundcloud page:

Drift (2009/2010) for 2 Electric Guitars and Live Sampling
Drift uses a tuning system as devised by the American minimalist composer La Monte Young for his magnum opus The Well Tuned Piano (1964 - ).
Each guitar is tuned differently within this system and uses only open string natural harmonics found at the 12th, 7th and 5th frets of the instrument. The guitars are sampled in real-time and spatialized across an 8-channel speaker array.