Wilson - Necromancer (Farpoint CD, 2026)

Ian Wilson - Necromancer

Farpoint Recordings, 2026

Dario Calderone, Lina Andonovska, Cathal Roche, Alex Petcu

CD and Digital Download

As I mentioned in my review of a recent performance of a new composition Adam's Rib, the voice has been an intriguing and multifaceted variable in several of Ian Wilson's recent works, most obviously in Lost Voices but also even in the 'lost voice' of Orpheus in Orpheus Down. What is interesting about Ian Wilson's 'voice' in the music of Necromancer is that it operates on different levels that reveal and illuminate different aspects of what might otherwise be a challenging work. Even the instruments and the musicians chosen to play the piece all bring a unique voice that determines the narrative drive, colouring the imagery and the inspiration behind it.

As a Belfast born composer, or indeed as anyone born in Northern Ireland who has lived through the height of Troubles, how you process that unquestionably formative experience is different for everyone. For many it's something that you can only acknowledge much later in life - the Troubles having ended over 30 years ago (supposedly) - and often it seems from a safer more distanced perspective. In my case I’ve found some of the most powerful reflections on those times not dating from the period, but from a reflective view written many years after the events by creative new Northern Irish writers of fiction like Anna Burns, Olivia Fitzsimons and Liadan Ní Chuinn, some of whom would have been too young or even yet born to experience the worst days of the Troubles. For Ian Wilson, it is a book of photographs "The memories of others" taken back in the day by Japanese photojournalist Akihiko Okamura that inspired a response, a "musical exorcism" reflecting on these images from the past viewed in the context of memory from the distance of today.

Analysing or providing a critical response to a piece of music from such a personal space can be difficult and probably not instructive. It's clearly a genuine artistic response that combines experience with the ability to express that musically, which is something that is clearly never in doubt when it comes to this composer’s work. The choice of these four remarkable musicians to play it ensures that the work stands on its own terms and its underlying 'narrative' is expressed to its fullness. Each musician and instrument has a significant role to play in not just creating a musical soundtrack for the photographs that inspire each of the pieces or merely echo them, but independent of them they come together to evoke the sensibility, a mood, a memory that lies behind the images, even contributing some controlled improvisation to the notated score, essential to the unpredictable explosive nature of the subject.

Percussionist Alex Petcu you would imagine plays an important role in that, and it's not just for clattering sounds of marching bands, burning bonfires or rioting mobs. There is a delicacy to the opening prelude (Still life with milk bottles), the familiar (to those of us of a certain age) tinkle of milk bottles on a doorstep that nonetheless carries the ominous edge that they may well be used later for Molotov cocktails. There is a narrative line then in the subsequent pieces, not strictly linear, but expanding to carry subtle hints at deeper motivations, sentiments and context. That is achieved precisely through the use of instruments, the subsequent percussive explosion of Bonfire settling into an urgent stirring of emotions in the double bass of Dario Calderone; the breathiness of Lina Andonovska's contrabass flute and Cathal Roche's bass clarinet could be wind blowing on the embers or they could allude to the human element and emotive impact blending with the sparks and crackling.

It is incredible that there is so much expressed in that short piece alone, but it also has its own qualities as a striking piece of music. The whistle of flight and crash of those Milk bottle molotovs in the subsequent section is a little more musically descriptive but again, it has a rich blend of musical elements, space and silence to allow the listener to consider the impact of the destruction they caused to people and the vehicles and homes they were usually aimed at. (Although I am too young to remember the specific event, I do remember the terror of those days when we once had a petrol filled milk bottle thrown into our backyard back at the start of the Troubles in 1969. Fortunately it failed to ignite). An Interlude reflecting on those put out of her homes gives you room to consider a worse eventuality. Again, having been pulled out of a bombed building on another occasion (virtually unscathed), it's something that I can personally relate to.

I have to admit that even on a first listen, I found that I didn't need the titles to follow the sequence, the music independently telling their own story divorced from the images that inspired them (I have a copy of the photos inspired the music, but they aren't reproduced in the CD edition for copyright reasons), and my reflections took on their own direction inspired by the music. That is surely an equally valid response, as is just simply letting the music speak to you in whatever way feels right, but there is little doubt that it is intrinsically tied up with the settings suggested by the images and it's immensely rewarding to try to connect with them, but even the titles of the pieces tell you everything you need to know.

Mopping up the Blood, for example, sounds like it could be harrowing - and indeed there is what sounds like a frenzied panic of rubbed strings, hyperventilated breathing on the wind instruments and the percussive echo of the impact of an explosion still ringing in the ears at start of the piece but it is actually develops into a deep, reflective and sorrowful piece. The ever varying nature of the experience and the response to it continues after another Interlude to two richly musical pieces that are lighter and easy to engage and identify with. Street Altar and Children with bunting and police landrover both again have that layered quality, children from both sides of the community making the most of play from found materials in rundown working class streets where scenes of atrocities have taken place. The innocence of the situations - the music not suggesting any sense of irony in the juxtaposition - reflect an outlook oblivious to any notion that there is anything unusual here or that the world could be any different. That is a vital part of the 'story' here.

Necromancer is undoubtedly a piece that you may find you have a closer connection with if you have lived in the place and times that inspired it. Even if you have not experienced the Northern Ireland Troubles however, the musical qualities of Ian Wilson’s compositions and the intense but sensitive playing of the musicians have a character and a flow that takes the listener on a journey that has deeper resonances. Necromancer reawakens the dead not only to have them speak of the past as a form of exorcism, but as the Epilogue reminds us, while also taking into account the high human cost in a world were there is still no shortage of war and conflict, peace is the only effective way of exorcising those demons.

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING

Necromancer (2025) for double bass, flute(s), clarinet(s), and percussion
Created with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland
Music composed by Ian Wilson and published by United Music Publishing Ltd. (UMP)
Performed by double bassist Dario Calderone, flautist Lina Andonovska, 
clarinettist Cathal Roche and percussionist Alex Petcu

Recorded at The Meadow, Delgany, County Wicklow on 11th October 2025
Recorded, edited and mixed by David Stalling
Produced by Ian Wilson and David Stalling
Images: Justine Cooper

Design: Doreen Kennedy

Digital release co-ordinated by Anthony Kelly and David Stalling

External links: Necromancer, Akihiko Okamura

TERRAIN Festival of New Music (Belfast, 2024)

TERRAIN Festival of New Music

New Horizons Music, 2024

Ian Wilson, Liza Lim, Ivan Moody, Greg Caffrey, Jane O’Leary, Daniel Kessner, Ioana Petcu-Colan, Ashling Agnew, David McCann, Lina Andonovska, David Lyttle, Cathal Roche

The Accidental Theatre, Belfast - 18 May 2024

Although every pound in arts funding has to be fought for in the face of cuts and a cost of living crisis, we are fortunate in Northern Ireland to at least have tireless organisations promoting new, vital, experimental and cutting-edge new music. There are many important composers and rarely performed works of 20th century music that are rarely heard after their premiere, but it is important for the sake of musical progression and creativity to revisit these works and introduce them to a new public. The commission of original new works is just as important and fortunately, though initiatives north and south of the border, we also have a number of superb composers in Ireland, far more than we have outlets for their work to be heard.

Which is why it is important that composer and Artistic Director Ian Wilson has started another new music festival TERRAIN almost 10 years after the last the short-lived contemporary music festival TEMPERED was first presented over 4 days in 2015 and 2016 at the Crescent Arts Centre and a number of other venues. The inaugural one-day TERRAIN Festival of New Music might be a more modest proposal in scale, but in the range of music selected and the quality of performers gathered for three concerts at the Accidental Theatre in Belfast and with the support of the Arts Council NI, Moving on Music and the Contemporary Music Centre, there is ambition here that can surely be built upon 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the earlier noon or afternoon concerts in the festival, missing the chance to hear some music from significant modern and contemporary composers that you will be hard pressed to see programmed elsewhere or even find recordings of much of their work. This included a great selection of pieces from such luminaries as Michael Finnissy, Morton Feldman, Elliott Carter, Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders, Dai Fujikura, Kaija Saariaho as well as new works by Irish and local composers.

The musicians performing across the day are also among the best Ireland has to offer, each of them with a solid grounding and experience - and love for - contemporary music. Ioana Petcu-Colan is leader of the Ulster Orchestra, while flautist Ashling Agnew and cellist David McCann are local contemporary music specialists who have been regularly performing works by many of the above named composers in Belfast over the last decade as part of the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. Australian flautist Lina Andonovska is a new name to me but has an impressive international profile, while David Lyttle and Cathal Roche are both familiar figures on the Irish jazz and improvised music scene.

The evening performance of inaugural TERRAIN Festival of New Music opened with three solo cello performances by David McCann. Far from being a low-key introduction to the evening's performances, McCann almost stole the show with a performance of Liza Lim's Invisibility, but before that he showed the variety and virtuosity of solo cello works with pieces by Ivan Moody and Greg Caffrey. "O tower wreathed in gold" by Ivan Moody, who died earlier this year at the age of only 59, might not be one of his liturgical works - Moody was also an Eastern Orthodox priest - but it felt like there was a spiritual element pervading this beautiful short piece, performed warmly without any religious solemnity. 

I'm familiar with Greg Caffrey's work, finding them enjoyable, full of ideas and interesting techniques and references, particularly his ensemble pieces composed as Artistic Director of the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. As enjoyable as they are in the moment, they never seem to linger for me personally, and that was also the case with "Vigour, Rigour, Jigger". An intense piece in three short movements that require a lot of concentration, skill and technique - which McCann has plenty of - the first section signed-off unexpectedly by an impromptu car horn heard outside that seemed to fit with the fun tone of the work. It was a well-chosen piece that provided contrast and variety and complemented the other two works in this set.

Australian composer Liza Lim describes her exploratory solo cello piece "Invisibility" as one where "the cello also plays the musician". It's hard to imagine David McCann having anything but complete control of his cello in the drive, intensity and fluctuations of this remarkable piece, but there are indeed a number of invisible forces that produce unexpected results, Invisibility requiring not just the use of a regular bow, but a second bow with the hair wrapped around the wood. With its unusual tuning and scratchy complexities the sounds produced are extraordinary, as is the showmanship of playing the final segment with both bows simultaneously in both hands. I've heard this work before, but seeing it performed live is a revelation.

Which is what this is all about really. Live music performances give the audience an opportunity to really engage with the beauty and complexities of works that otherwise might seem formidable and inaccessible. It was just such an experience, as well as another example of thoughtful programming and musicianship, that made the violin and flute duos performed by Ioana Petcu-Colan violin and Aisling Agnew work so well together in performance. The two pieces by Irish-American and American composers at either end were contrasting but complementary, Jane O’Leary’s "A Winter Sketchbook" all icy fragility in the call and response interaction between flute and violin, while Daniel Kessner’s "Nuance" used a similar style, but with a warmer character with a hint of Appalachian bluegrass on the violin that perfectly rounded out this performance, the two separated by a short ethereal Toru Takemitsu piece originally composed for two flutes.

Another facet of new music that is often overlooked - which also requires specialised musicians - is improvised music. New music doesn't came any newer than being composed as it is performed in the moment. It takes incredible skill on the instrument and the ability to listen and respond, and that was in evidence with the remarkable musicianship and creativity of saxophonist Cathal Roche and drummer David Lyttle, both experienced jazz musicians and composers, forming an impressive trio with flautist Lina Andonovska, who introduced her contrabass flute into the performance. This was no free jazz onslaught however, the opening breathy flute introduction by Andonovska developing into an improvised piece not that far removed from the kind of meticulously scored works composed by Salvatore Sciarrino. Roche opened another section with a melody somewhere between Arabian and Irish folk expanded upon by the other two musicians with wonderful interplay. A final 'encore' opened by Andonovska took the music much closer to the free improvisation jazz world but always there was a sense of purpose of creativity, control, listening and responsiveness to each other as well as consideration for their audience.

In such choices in the music programming and the musicians, the inaugural TERRAIN Festival of New Music - what I managed to catch of it - seemed to take this idea of programming a wide variety of adventurous new music and presenting it in an accessible format as something of a mission statement. Even the Accidental Theatre has an intimacy and close familiarity that commands attention and engagement with the performers and the music. This an impressive start to a new venture that - along with the work of The Belfast Ensemble, the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, Sonorities and Moving on Music's Brilliant Corners Festival - feels like it has something vital to contribute to the local contemporary music and arts scene.

External links: New Horizons Music, Contemporary Music Centre, Moving on Music