United Kingdom Nieuwe Noten: Laborious Rain SoloistEnsemble (Aisling Agnew [flute], David McCann [cello], Daniel Browell [piano], Fie Schouten [clarinet], Joanne Quigley McParland and Roban Harron [violin]) / Sinead Hayes (conductor). Harty Room, Queens College, Belfast, 16.6.2023. (RB)

Gráinne Mulvey – LUCA
Greg Caffrey – Tout
John Buckley – Three Mobiles after Alexander Calder
Ann Cleare – The place cobalt waves stay
Piers Hellawell – Floor Truthing
Rhona Clarke – Non-Cease

Greg Caffrey based the Laborious Rain SoloistEnsemble in 2013 and has been main them from power to power during the last decade. This live performance marked the tip of his tenure as Inventive Director of the Ensemble. The programme featured a brand new work by him entitled, Tout which was written final yr and first carried out in Chile.

The programme opened with Gráinne’s Mulvey’s LUCA which provided a portrait of the only cell organism from which all life is believed to stem. The younger violinist, Rohan Harron, joined the opposite members of the Ensemble for this piece rather than Joanne Quigley McParland. LUCA may be very a lot an avantgarde work and the Ensemble did properly in realising the bizarre sound world required for this piece. The work moved from atomised sounds initially and was allowed to construct in a seemingly random and but interconnected method. Sinead Hayes did an exemplary job bringing coherence to the work.

In Northern Eire a tout is an informer inside a specific group and the phrase was ceaselessly used as a time period of abuse through the ‘The Troubles’. Greg Caffrey’s new work, Tout is scored for piano and flute; it’s a reflection on this concept of the informer throughout Northern Eire’s current ‘Troubles’. The work had a neo-Classical really feel and there was a lot advanced interaction and counterpoint between the 2 devices. Aisling Agnew and Daniel Browell did a wonderful job conjuring up concepts of hazard, distrust and deceit and the work ended on a shrill be aware maybe depicting the id of the ‘tout’ had been revealed. This was a stimulating and extremely fulfilling new work.

John Buckley’s Three Mobiles After Alexander Calder was impressed by the kinetic sculptures of US sculptor, Alexander Calder. There was wonderful interaction between all 5 gamers of the Ensemble on this piece. The artists captured properly the playful high quality of the primary motion and the rhythmic vitality of the third with its shifting metrical patterns. The center motion had a sombre eloquence which was darkish and affecting. This can be a extremely spectacular work that deserves to be heard way more extensively.

Ann Cleare’s The place cobalt waves stay was written for piano solo and treats your entire register of the piano as ‘an ocean of fluidity’. It was initially commissioned by Lyric FM for the Dublin Worldwide Piano Competitors in 2018. Daniel Browell gave a extremely virtuosic account of this demanding work with its fast rhythmic patterns and weird results traversing the entire of the keyboard.

Piers Hellawell’s Floor Truthing was additionally written in 2018 and is a meditation on the identical materials at totally different magnifications. This piece was written for the entire of the Ensemble and so they gave a really dedicated efficiency. I used to be impressed by a number of the hanging and extremely unique sonorities.

The live performance concluded with Rhona Clarke’s Non-Cease, which is a fast-paced and visceral work. The irregular rhythms had an infectious foot-tapping high quality and one couldn’t assist however be caught up within the glowing exuberance of the music. It was a good way to complete a wonderful live performance and it offered a becoming tribute to mark the tip of Greg Caffrey’s necessary work with the Ensemble.

Robert Beattie