Coming Together - Louth Contemporary Music Society (Dundalk, 2026)

Louth Contemporary Music Society - Coming Together

LCMS, Dundalk 2026

Canti della tenebra - Beat Furrer
Litanei - Beat Furrer
Coming Together - Frederic Rzewski
 
String Trio - Jürg Frey

in mia vita da vuolp - Beat Furrer
Lotófagos - Beat Furrer
Prophezeiungen - Beat Furrer

Ten Lyrics of Li Po - Harry Partch
U.S. Highball - Harry Partch

Davóne Tines: Recital No. 1 - Mass

Dundalk - 19th and 20th June 2026

The persistent rain stopped and the skies cleared a few hours before the opening evening concert of the first day of the 2026 Louth Contemporary Music Society festival. Now in its 20th year, this year's programme was entitled Coming Together and the LCMS's midsummer celebration of new music brought together many regular attendees under the June sun in Dundalk, Co. Louth, including the seagulls who added their customary background lament. The unique conditions of this setting - something that makes this festival of new music unlike any other - were reflected in the programming for the opening concert at St. Nicholas' Church of three pieces that alone almost constitute a mini-festival. It certainly pointed to the variety and the adventurous direction that the festival would take in the following full day of concerts; a format that is characteristic of the festival, the programme constantly surprising and delighting, yet retaining a clear coherent unity, never feeling like it is just a collection of pieces thrown randomly together.

The principal guest composer this year was Swiss-born Austrian composer Beat Furrer who has such a variety of work that you could build a festival around his compositions work alone. Furrer, in my opinion (as principally an opera reviewer) excels in vocal pieces and while we didn't get one of his full scale operas at the LCMS festival, the works chosen for the programme proved to be extraordinarily rich in musical, lyrical and even dramatic content. Furrer's astonishing choral work Enigmas featured in last year's festival Echoes, and the qualities of that work were reflected in the two pieces for solo voices on the opening night. Based on a work by the Italian poet Dino Campania (1885-1932), Canti della tenebra for contralto and piano (Cornelia Sonnleithner the contralto, Mary Dullea on piano) immediately grabbed your attention, the mood of the piece melancholic and reflective of someone unmoored on a journey. The musical setting reflected and deepened the meaning - something that would be a feature of the rest of the festival selections - drawing you in and inviting you to feel and connect with the underlying sentiments.

Furrer also gifted us with a remarkable new piece commissioned by LCMS, Litanei for soprano, clarinet & string quartet. It was perhaps not so easy to relate to the emotional content, but the effect of the manner in which the fragments of the poems were assembled and presented was extraordinary. Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-77) and Gaspara Stampa (1523-54) are separated by centuries and language but weaved together their words don't so much intensify their respective agony as much as support each other through the pain. Furrer conducted the ensemble with a very tight rein through the precise, short sharp jagged expressions of intense hurt fired out in the voice and in the instruments ("crushed… skewered…between the pages of the book…reality murdered") were wreathed in short gaps of silence to let them resonate, before building in intensity. Elina Viluma-Helling unveiled some stark emotional trauma that you might not want to feel so viscerally, but for the listener - for this one anyway - it was utterly gripping. You could feel yourself tensing, but somehow the musical development managed to find a release for all the pent-up emotions across its short but intense journey. Utterly breathtaking.

In a way that is typical of the programming - and reflected at greater length across Day 2 - Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together couldn't have been more different in its musical treatment and yet in a way it was complementary to the Furrer pieces and even an ideal way of further coming down from them. The work is based on a letter written in 1971 by Sam Melville, a prisoner in Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, in the same year that Melville was later involved in the prison riots demanding basic human rights that saw forty-three inmates and guards killed, including Melville himself. Rzewski's setting of the words is a celebrated piece, very much in the minimalist tradition of Terry Riley’s In C, but it has features that also have echoes to other works seen at the LCMS in previous years such as Gavin Briers' Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet and Robert Ashley in the Lovely Music programme, using conversational or found text with an enigmatic expression that is explored through rhythmic propulsion and repetition.

As delivered by Daisy Press and the ensemble, Rzewski’s Coming Together was just as fascinating and thoughtful the compelling exploration of words in the Furrer pieces, but approached from a totally different angle. Like In C the instruments are not predetermined, but the rising and falling interactive dynamic is an essential scored element and Daisy Press was expressive in exploring the words and communicative in how she put them across, not least in the enigmatic repetition of the line "I think the combination of age and the greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time." Giving this year's festival its title, there are plenty of other opportunities in the remaining Day 2 programme to reflect on that idea of a "greater coming together", but the programme on the opening night concert alone provided a rich musical assemblage of its own.

In as much as any musical piece is - and it was the only purely musical piece in this year's programme - Jürg Frey’s String Trio is a work that locates you in space and time: slowness of time, each note measured out, the performance venue playing a vital role in the uniqueness of the piece. This would sound and feel quite different in Frey's home place of inspiration in the Swiss Alps, it might have sounded different indeed even in Dundalk in another venue like the chapel of St Vincent's but in the former jail of the Oriel Centre, it had perhaps a more melancholy and reflective tone. You could even see a kind of 'coming together' forming already in the festival's programming, the previous evening ending with a piece that was informed by the writing of a prisoner in a jail adding an unexpected resonance to work. Rather than a lament however it felt more like welcoming music, drawing you and the audience back in together, and running to around 47- minutes long, providing something of an endurance test to prep you for the day ahead. Ultimately however the String Trio was rewarding in its slow development and progression, the subtle brush of a bow, the holding on a sustained note, the off-centre changes and interactions of Darragh Morgan (violin), Danusha Waskiewicz (viola) and Jakob Kullberg (cello), and the intimacy and acoustics of the Dundalk Gaol enough to hold you rapt and attentive.

In his introduction to his three pieces performed at St Vincent's Chapel, in mia vita da vuolp (in my life as a wolf, 2019), Lotófagos (The Lotus Eaters, 2006) and Prophezeiungen (Prophesies, 2023), Beat Furrer talked about voice, language, the inspiration of the poems that they are written around, and how there is a need to feel them deeply in order to write music for them. The pieces all accordingly have different combinations of singer and instrumentation; in mia vita da vuolp for soprano and baritone saxophone, Lotófagos for soprano and double bass, Prophezeiungen for alto, contrabass clarinet and accordion. Two of the pieces have opera connections, Lotófagos incorporated into the Furrer opera Wüstenbuch (2010), Prophezeiungen written in preparation for the opera Das grosse Feuer (2025), and performed by musicians and singers of the astonishingly virtuosic Cantando Admont vocal ensemble they were accordingly fully dramatic in expression, from the lowest of whispers to the most piercing of shrieks, from rapid recital of text to slowest drawing out of words.

Testing voice and instruments to their limits, soprano Elina Viluma-Helling and baritone saxophonist Gerald Preinfalk swooped and howled though in mia vita da vuolp; double bass player Nikolaus Feinig was bent over at a 90° angle for most of the 10 minutes of high bass notes of Lotófagos in a battle to draw full expression out of the setting of the Spanish text scored in a dauntingly challenging range that was met by soprano Giulia Zaniboni. The combination of voice and instruments of these two pieces produced some incredible sound worlds, but the most striking and unusual was evident in Prophezeiungen, the contrabass clarinet of Marco Sala and accordion of Krassimir Sterev creating unearthly sounds that wove through the astonishing vocal delivery of alto Helena Sorokina. It was a charged pin-you-back-into-your-pew performance of all three pieces, finding incredible musicality even at the most extreme limits of sound, voice and music, but always in service to the vivid imagery of the texts.

Ostensibly having little in common with the other concerts, Harry Partch fits into this programme much more easily than you would think, which is of course one of the wonders of the programming of the LCMS, which always looks for something a little more outside the box for its event at the Spirit Store venue. Creating his own self-made custom instruments, composing in just intonation, new music doesn't get much more experimental than the truly unique and inimitable compositions of the American iconoclast Harry Partch, very much an outsider in life and work compared to the European modernists of the early 20th century. What the music also has in common with the other pieces in the LCMS programme however is the distinctive nature of the writing for the voice, Partch adopting just intonation precisely for a more natural expression of the spoken voice. 

We got a broad view of Partch's work from his earliest work in his new experimental style in Ten Lyrics of Li Po, Luke Fitzpatrick playing Partch's customised viola with a cello neck studded with little metal frets described as 'brads' in the programme notes. U.S. Highball however felt more authentic Partch, recounting his own lived experience as a hobo hopping trains across America, authentic also in its record of those whose company and adventures he shared, having tremendous value for that alone. Using an adapted fretless guitar, its notes and sounds played out on raised strings with picks on right hand and bottleneck slides on the left fingers, the whole piece as Charles Corey notes (and plays) "captures the relentless energy of freight trains barrelling down mountainsides".

You don't usually get an opera singer doing a recital at the LCMS, but even when it looks like that is what has been programmed for the final evening concert of the festival, you can be sure it won't be any regular recital. Davóne Tines is however definitely a big name American bass-baritone in the opera world. I saw him in Amsterdam ten years ago when he made his first significant international appearance for the premiere of Kaija Saariaho's Only The Sound Remains at the DNO, and he has taken notable roles in premieres of John Adams' Girls of the Golden West and Terence Blanchard's powerful Fire Shut Up in My Bones, all indicating that Tines works outside the standard repertoire and very much in the sphere of new music. His Recital No. 1 - Mass then is indeed not just the regular programme of songs removed from their original context, but rather pieces selected and arranged to form a new context; a modern mass, so to speak, given appropriately in the St. Nicholas' Church of Ireland in Dundalk. And in that respect, it's also very much in this year's programme of finding creative and imaginative ways of interpreting words and finding a way to bring out other deeper personal meanings and ideas.

On paper Recital No. 1 - Mass is an eclectic mix; Handel and Bach side-by-side with Caroline Shaw and Julius Epstein, with spirituals arranged by Tyshawn Sorey, better known to me as a virtuoso jazz drummer but also pianist and composer. Conceptually however Tines had the whole recital perfectly arranged and measured and the voice to carry it off, accompanied only by the piano of John Bitoy. Bach's Mache dich, mein Herze, rein and the spirituals in particular were quite movingly sung and played, the church (or heavens) even playing its part in the evening by beaming a ray of the setting sun through the front windows of the church down to the altar to light up a ferocious delivery of Moses Hogan’s Give me Jesus. It's this kind of unpredictable and unprogrammable moment that you get more often than you would imagine at the LCMS and it's the kind of thing that makes the LCMS truly special. Whether the US bass-baritone succeeded in his aim of creating a queered mass or touching on something spiritually transcendental, Tines certainly made a case for the negro slave spirituals being as equally close to the love of God as Bach's celestial music, bringing humanity to the divinity. Somehow that seemed to be the perfect summation to the coming together of all the adventurous, surprising and uplifting music presented in this year's LCMS programme.

External links: Louth Contemporary Music Society

Glass - Satyagraha (Paris, 2026)

Philip Glass - Satyagraha

Opéra National de Paris, 2026

Ingo Metzmacher, Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ilanah Lobel-Torres, Olivia Boen, Davóne Tines, Amin Ahangaran, Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Deepa Johnny, Nicky Spence, Nicolas Cavallier, Alexander Bozinoff, Lorrin Brubaker, Jeremy Coachman Jonathan Fredrickson, Marion Gautier de Charnacé, Awa Joannais, Héloïse Jocqueviel, Payton Johnson, Rachel McNamee, Mermoz Melchior, Adrien Ouaki, Ido Toledano

Palais Garnier, Paris - 14th April 2026

Satyagraha is a multi-layered work, which is perhaps to state the obvious since that's true of any opera, but I think even more so in the case of Glass’s second opera. There is a noticeable shift away from the more experimental Einstein in the Beach, but Satyagraha still remains unconventional in its format and presentation, using conventional but reduced groups of acoustic instruments (strings and woodwind, no brass or percussion) that almost imitate the rapidly played Philip Glass Ensemble keyboard arpeggios alongside scenes with actual electronic keyboard flourishes. Each one of the work's layers, musical and conceptual, are however necessary and completely true to the nature and intent of the message of the "truth force" (Satyagraha) of non-violent resistance that it intends to put across in this medium; and indeed does so impressively, inspiring some spectacular stage productions over the years. The latest production at the Paris Opéra is no exception.

When I say layered, Satyagraha is layered in its whole conception, since it has complex conflicting ideas it wants to work through. Opera is the ideal medium for that of course, at the same time being flexible enough to allow Glass tremendous scope to innovate and remain true to his own voice. On one level the opera considers the dilemma of the warrior Arjuna in the ancient Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita as he is conflicted over his duty to join the battle or follow his own inner voice that rejects violence. On another level, Glass explores the influence of the work as the foundation of Mohandas Gandhi's movement of non-violent resistance through selected scenes from his life and applies it to how that message is taken forward through Rabindranath Tagore, Leo Tolstoy and Martin Luther King Jr. The music and singing provide another accumulative level to the emotional, philosophical and ideal truth force of non-violent resistance as a path to peace and justice, seeking to embody it less in narrative than in a trance-like meditation of the mantra-like delivery of the Sanskrit libretto.

Satyagraha already has these multiple layers built-in, but the stage production provides the opportunity for a creative director to add a few more and, based on past history of productions, such is the nature of the work and its subject that this opera can easily sustain them with overloading or detracting from its essential purpose. The spectacle of Phelim McDermott's production for the English National Opera (which I saw three times in its 2006/07, 2009/10 and 2021/22 seasons) which also transferred to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, adhered relatively closely to the journey of Gandhi in his path to resistance, or at least recognised it as the central focus of the work. In that production Constance De Jong's libretto taken from the Bhagavad Gita and sung in Sanskrit was not subtitled or translated as it was believed (with some merit) that the work and its message could speak for itself.

The new 2026 Paris production directed and choreographed by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber would beg to differ and accordingly they take a different course through the work presumably towards the same end. That's somewhat in the spirit of the whole Krishna-Arjuna dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita that underpins the work, in which the eternal struggle between the individual self and the higher Godself is resolved through the imperative of putting aside doubt and just taking action. The directors then choose to ditch the outline structure as it relates to Gandhi and instead explore the Arjuna narrative, in the process even removing the names of the principal singing characters, reducing them to voice types. In this refinement of the work - that nevertheless takes nothing away from it - it becomes more of a spiritual journey and that is enhanced through the focus on movement and dance rather than dramatic action.

The premise of this version is then made relatively simple, taking its lead from the opening scene's dialogue from the Bhagavad Gita between Arjuna and Krishna on the eve of the war between the Kuruvas and the Pandavas royal families. The outcome of Arjuna’s actions become the motivating force through the remainder of the opera in this production to rise above the individual desires and seek a higher purpose and truth. Set in what looks like a kind of assembly hall or rehearsal room with raised platforms and doors to the sides - with Gandhi, Tagore, Tolstoy and King looking on from above - in the first scene of Act I: The Kuru Field of Justice, a soldier in modern military uniform is manipulated into the killing of his fellow man by dark forces, both internal and external. A stage at the back of the hall which remains dark, light occasionally cutting through the mist, suggests that this is a space for an internal, emotional or personal journey. But it's not enough for this to be just a individual struggle to come to terms with one's own personal demons; the man has to reconcile his own belief in truth and justice with the reality of the outside world and bring others along with him to believe in the power of non-violent resistance.

If there is one key phrase in the libretto that might have inspired the directors and choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, it would seem to be the need to become "athletes of the spirit", as this is what is expressed in a production that aspires through movement and dance to match those heights of finding the truth force of Satyagraha achieved in the music and the singing. Glass's flowing rhythmic pulsating score for the opera is ideally suited for this approach, Glass having composed dance sections already for Lucinda Childs' choreography in sections of Einstein on the Beach and going on to create dance pieces for Twyla Tharp's In The Upper Room in 1986. Despite abandoning any traditional opera narrative, the ballet works just as effectively in the hands of Smith and Schraiber, each scene finding fresh ways to express aspects of the man in his internal struggle to reach a higher level, to be a better representative of what man can be in the battle with the corruption of the outside world. Figures then emerge out of the crowds and chorus to join and give strength to the movement.

The new Paris production of Satyagraha succeeds marvellously through its adherence to the spirit and spiritual element of the opera. In the central point of the opera, in Scene 2: Indian Opinion of Act II - Tagore (although the scene is no longer tied to the Gandhi narrative), the dancers step into a joined spiral of simple rhythmic dance steps in one of the most beautiful pieces in the production. It might look simple, but that's the beauty of it; it makes you feel like you want to get up and join them. That's also a quality within the work itself and within the deceptively simple repetitions of Philip Glass's music. In reality it's much more complex than it looks and sounds, in how it takes its time and builds, accumulating weight and meaning in its very structure and indeed movement, much more than just relying on words and narrative.

This is really Philip Glass’s Parsifal; a work that touches deep on what it means to be human and suffer in an imperfect world, but strive to achieve peace and inspire change that will save the world. Living in a time when injustice, inequality, violence and genocidal killing have reached new levels of obscenity, it's not hard to see how that sentiment is now more important than ever. What it also shows us - and which this production's focus and sense of movement highlights even more - is the history of the great names who have resisted through the years, showing that the battle still needs to be fought though the path of non-violent resistance. In that respect this is one modern opera that will endure because it has something that will always be relevant to the times, and it will always be important to remind ourselves of its message. Its form and conception are also key to its promise of longevity, the persuasive music showing how to rebuild and gain force though constant progression, reiteration and gradual change.

The unconventional orchestration and use of instruments - the orchestra essentially having to become an extended Philip Glass Ensemble without the same experience of performing this kind of fast flowing music of repetition and sudden changes - must present considerable challenges. The performance of the Paris orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher however was impressive and indeed persuasive, the delivery firm and seductive as it just washed across the Palais Garnier carrying everyone along with it. The singing likewise was extraordinarily good, as it can't but be in this opera, this time with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo coming from Akhnaten in the Glass 'Portrait Trilogy' to the principal (Gandhi) role here. Usually a high tenor part, Costanzo retained the sweetness of the timbre while still incredibly managing to cut through the ensembles and even (vitally) rise above the huge chorus scenes. All the voices and how they come across is important in Satyagraha and it couldn't have been better arranged and directed, all credit to chorus master Ching-Lien Wu. The dance choreography is stunning, but no more or less important than any other element, other than perhaps bringing a robustness that adds another dimension that further enhances the meaning of the work.

I remarked in my review of the Live in HD cinema broadcast of this opera at the Metropolitan Opera in 2011 that it seemed like Glass and this opera were finally receiving belated recognition, but with all nine performances of this new production of Satyagraha at the Paris Opéra selling out months ago (I was only able to pick up a return on the actual day of the performance), it's clear that both this uncompromising work and its composer have achieved a popular status that few could have imagined when it premiered in Rotterdam in 1980. I fully expect that that this production, like the hugely successful Phelim McDermott production, will be revived at some stage and see future new productions, but if you can't wait, a performance of this current run will be broadcast live on the pay-per-view Paris Opera Play (POP) streaming service on the 24th April.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play (POP)
Production photographs: Yonathan Kellerman, OnP

Saariaho - Only the Sound Remains (DNO, 2016 - Amsterdam)

Kaija Saariaho - Only the Sound Remains 

Dutch National Opera, 2016

André de Ridder, Peter Sellars, Philippe Jaroussky, Davone Tines, Nora Kimball-Mentos, Heleen Koele, Marian Dijkhuizen, Albert van Ommen, Gilad Nezer

Nationale Opera & Ballet, Amsterdam - 15 March 2016

The few indications of what you could expect from the new opera by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho suggested that it was going to be quite 'arty' in conception. The fact that the piece was to be based on two Japanese Nôh dramas adapted and directed by Peter Sellars certainly prompted this impression and expectations of slowness and paucity of drama were indeed met at the 2016 World Premiere of Only the Sound Remains in Amsterdam. Where the work exceeded all expectations however was in the richness of the musical language that Saariaho employed with a minimum of instruments, and in how successfully it expressed the inner meaning of the work.

When you are dealing with Nôh drama, that is obviously the most important aspect to get across. Japanese Nôh theatre, the Dutch National Opera's promotional material told us "was born from the Buddhist idea that light is concealed largely in darkness, so as not to blind mere mortals." The conceptual approach to the subject then is a sound one, in more than one sense of the word. Reduced down to their simplest form, symbolism largely taking the place of any representational view of the dramatic staging, it's indeed only the sound that remains as a way of delving into the darkness that separates mortals from the true light on the other side of the veil.

That's very high concept and somewhat airy-fairy, so let's deal with the more objective reality of what is represented on the stage in the two short operas. Both of the Nôh dramas deal with a contact that is established between a mortal and a being from "the other side". In 'Always Strong', a Buddhist priest evokes the spirit of the legendary warrior Tsunemasa during a ceremony in his honour. Tsunemasa's ghost is drawn back by the offering of a lute that was a gift from the Emperor, the warrior appearing in the form of a shadow that eventually disappears leaving only the sound of his voice remaining behind. In the second story 'Feather Mantle', a fisherman finds the feather robe of an angel, and only agrees to return it if the angel will agree to perform a celestial dance in exchange.

There is not really any greater complexity to the dramas than is outlined above, and not really any great sense of meaning that you can take from the descriptions or indeed the libretti for the works alone. What is important, as much in opera as in Nôh drama, is the essence of the performance itself, and the clue to the nature of art as a medium of communication with "the other" is in the works themselves. It's a musical instrument, a lute, that permits the Priest to hear the voice from the spirit world, and it's through the dance of an angel that a humble fisherman is able to see beyond it to experience a vision of the waxing and waning of the moon. Sellars' direction keeps the works as simple as that, with little use of props and only two or three figures on the largely bare stage, with only a thin veil and lighting/shadows used to show the separation between the physical and spiritual worlds.

Watching Only the Sound Remains, I was reminded of another recent new opera, Georg Friedrich Haas' Morgen und Abend which premiered at the Royal Opera House last year, but only in as far as how Sellars similarly reduces the dramatic content in his libretto to deal with a subject that lies outside normal human experience. Like Morgen und Abend - although the musical approach is very different (the range of modern music far wider than most suspect) - Only the Sound Remains also attempts to extend the range of music drama, using new sounds and techniques to describe something that mere language and a dramatic construct alone cannot hope to reach; an attempt to grasp a sense of the other.

Kaija Saariaho's music is the vital element that establishes the connection to the spiritual side in both works, and it is really is something quite astonishing. The music is performed by a small seven-piece ensemble that consists of a string quartet, percussion, flute and Finnish kantele harp. The string quartet, and perhaps the percussion as well, creates a kind of an ambient atmospheric drone background mood music that could be said to be representative of the physical world. The more expressive exploration of the light on the other side is achieved mainly through the soft flow of the flute and the extraordinary otherworldly plucked string sounds of the kantele. More than the choice of instruments, it's the incredible way that they interact that establishes the connection between the physical world and the spiritual. The overall impact and richness of this sound world is mesmerising, Saariaho enlarging the palette of sound she can achieve using these acoustic instruments alone, with little need this time for the use of electronics.

Electronics were used only noticeably in one or two places in the second piece, and mainly then on the voice. The use of the singing voice is evidently another hugely important element of the overall soundscape here and again Saariaho's writing for it in Only the Sound Remains is just extraordinary. Both pieces are written for only two singers on the stage; a baritone for the priest and the fisherman; a countertenor for the ghost and for the angel (with a dancer doubling the role). Here alone the desired sound is fully realised with Davone Tines integrating with the earthier sounds of the physical world and Philippe Jaroussky's countertenor soaring to reach that otherworldly level. A quartet of singers in the raised orchestra pit however also forms part of that vital function of connecting the two planes in a kind of narrator role, even taking a performance role mirroring gestures on the stage.

Although the two works like the two worlds they explore remain separate, there is of course much that connects them and Sellars' libretto, along with his on-stage visual clues and Saariaho's dynamic musical expression of the light and dark, help bring out the underlying commonalities in the works and the message that lies within them. The interaction that occurs in both plays suggests an answer to the question of why there isn't a stronger bond between the two worlds on either side of the veil. The ghost of Tsunemasa reliving the horror of the wars and the angels held earthbound by human doubts, show that those on the other side tend to come off badly when they come into contact with the physical world. If they leave any trace behind in the world, only the sound remains and, when expressed like this in music, in poetry and dance, it's the closest thing we have to heaven on earth.

Links: DNO