Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble - Ink Still Wet VIII (Belfast, 2024)

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble - Ink Still Wet VIII

Composers: Anselm McDonnell, Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot, Simon Mawhinney, Omar Zatriqi, Peter O'Doherty, Sam Chambers, Ian Wilson

Conductor: Benjamin Haemhouts

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble: Aisling Agnew (flute), Sarah Watts (clarinet), David McCann (cello), Daniel Browell (piano) with guests Alex Petcu (percussion), Ciaran McCabe (violin), Ben Gannon (oboe), Lina Andonovska (flute)

Harty Room, Queen's University, Belfast - 1st February 2025

There may be some commonality in the musical backgrounds of the composers, many of them having studied at Queens University in Belfast or lectured there, but that's to be expected considering that the pieces in this programme of contemporary music are being presented - and in the case of four of the seven pieces actually commissioned - to form part of the eighth annual concert of new music performed by Northern Ireland's principal contemporary music ensemble, the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. New music so fresh in fact that this particular annual programme goes under the title of Ink Still Wet. The backgrounds of the composers however are rather more varied than that suggests and that is reflected in the surprisingly wide variety of compositions presented in Ink Still Wet VIII.

Or perhaps not so surprising really. Aside from the permutations that you can make use of in a core ensemble of five or six musicians and a few additional guests, there are various creative and modern technologies that can be employed where appropriate in service of the demands of any given piece, and some unexpected ones too. As such, none of the pieces in the programme were remotely alike, which is a testament to the individuality and creativity of the composers and to the performers of the HRSE in adapting to those styles, but it's also a sign that new contemporary music is in a very good place at the moment - both locally and internationally - not relying on the style or technique of some of the modern titans of new music past, but seeking to find new and creative means of personal expression that speaks of the world today.

What impressed me most about all the selections is that none of the compositions presented here - well, maybe one or two of them a little - were purely 'conceptual' or technical exercises in virtuosity, but indeed many of them reflected in one form or another consideration of an newfound or revitalised appreciation for nature. The programme notes for Ink Still Wet VIII reveal that many of the pieces here found inspiration from sources in nature, and embraced the challenge of finding an artistic and creative way to express and share those impressions with an audience through music.

The first two pieces in the programme strove to do this by extending the range of traditional musical instruments by including electronic and sound effects from nature. A play on the word Ectosymbiont, that refers to a parasitic organism that attaches itself to another to form a symbiotic relationship Anselm McDonnell's 'Echosymbiont' saw the composer acting as the 'outside' force, processing some of the sounds of the live performance on computer and playing it back through an on-stage speaker as an echoing response. It was a little unsettling initially to hear pauses where Alex Petcu's percussion continued in soft fading delays of electronic reverberations, but aside from perhaps recognising that there is a symbiotic (but hopefully not parasitic) relationship between composer and performers, it also reminded me that music doesn't stop when the playing finishes. It resonates in the room and - hopefully - has made a deeper connection with the listener and perhaps stays with them even longer than that. This one certainly did. 

Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot's 'Lisnabreeny Townland' was perhaps the piece where the connection with nature was most open and obvious without the aid of programme notes, the composer choosing to find her own form of symbiotic relationship in a solo flute composition by introducing field recordings alongside the playing of the flute. In four parts, inspired by walks to the ancient Lisnabreeny Rath in the Castlereagh Hills, the flute blended with and interacted with the sounds of birds, wind, water and leaves, even background sounds of traffic recorded on location. This was not just a pastoral piece however, but touched on mythology and fairy lore and our connection with an ancient world through nature. You could almost imagine this piece working in an outdoor setting, since it certainly achieved a sense of that even within the acoustics of the Harty Room at Queen's University. The piece resonated wonderfully with some deeply felt and sympathetic playing from Aisling Agnew. Again it emphasised how music is all around, how sounds inspire music and how music can strive not just imitate natural sounds but seek to embrace them and invite the listener to hear them in a fresh context while making something entirely new.

Simon Mawhinney perhaps stretched the definition of 'ink still wet' with his piece 'In Blue and Gold', taking a youthful student composition from 1998 and developing it into something new in 2024. If there is a connection to nature here it is at a remove, taking initial inspiration from another artistic work itself based on nature - a Middle Eastern painting 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold' by Walter Greaves, (which in itself were inspired by Whistler's paintings of the Thames in the same style) - which makes it an intriguing proposition when the composer is himself working at a remove and with maturity and experience in response to his younger nature and ideas. And it very much proves to be, the expansion of the instrumentation for a seven piece ensemble requiring the addition of guest oboist Ben Gannon with the HRSE delivering the wonderful richness and fullness of sound of the newly developed piece.

Belfast-born Omar Zatriqi's 'Diatribe' also proved to have a deep connection to exploring personal roots and influences, drawing from the composer's Albanian, Scottish and Croatian heritage. Although it incorporated folk influences from each of these worlds across each of its three sections and coda, there was no evident referencing of old style music in this thoroughly modern and contemporary piece composed for six piece ensemble. That in itself is a testament to acceptance of the gift of diversity and musically processing that mixed heritage into something new. If anything there was an sense of jazz fusion as much as folk in the bringing together of those influences to derive something of a distinct contemporary and personal voice. Different instruments would come into focus in each section, taking a lead and responding to each other, with the piano and marimba acting as a kind of connecting tissue. Each section seemed to build to a head only to be punctuated by crashes to release the build up of tension created by the overwhelming weight of bearing such rich and diverse ideas.

Perhaps it was just a lack of focus on my part after the interval, but Peter O'Doherty's 'Inflorescence' flew over my head and I was unable to find a way into it on a single hearing. It seeks to replicate in its structure the cluster patterns of flowers on a plant, the whole ecosystem of growth, flowering, decay and renewal. I love the idea of taking inspiration from structures in nature but it inevitably makes it a very complex piece with interweaving clusters, creating textures and resonances on adjoining sections and instrumentation. I would like to hear this again to see if I could get my head around it.

While understandably some of the commissioned works take advantage of the full resources of the musicians of the HRSE, there is also the freedom to choose to avail of just one of its soloists. Sam Chambers' 'His Feet are Light and Nimble' for solo violin certainly put guest violinist Ciaran McCabe through his paces, the piece feeling like it lay somewhere between a jig and demonic possession. It's not a long piece but such was the drive and delivery that you almost feared that McCabe was operating under a spell or a curse, and that if he stopped he would drop down dead in the spot. Fortunately that did not happen, but such are the fanciful ideas that come to mind while listening to the thrilling performance of this piece. Perhaps not so fanciful really since the piece is indeed inspired by just such a satanically possessed performance by a character in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.

While trying to navigate my way through a new piece of music heard for the first time, I often look for focus on an instrument that leads the way through it. There was no such difficulty with Sam Chambers' piece and definitely no mistaking that the focus of attention in Ian Wilson's 'When I Became the Sun' was on the rivetting performance of guest flautist Lina Andonovska, for whom the piece was written. Again the concept determined to a certain degree the choice of instrument - another ambitious engagement with nature on a grand scale, perhaps the most important one of all - but there was no failing to recognise the dominance of the role of the flute in the piece or the virtuosity of the performance. Becoming the sun, Andonovska's playing was a stellar force of nature, and if the rest of the ensemble at times felt like they were merely responsive to its force and whims, they were nonetheless vital components in the piece and in the overall fabric of the concept.

Suitably rich in its instrumentation, the piece therefore had a coherence but also an unpredictability in how a response to those emanations could take many forms. Sometimes it manifested as playful ripples of percussion and piano keys, sometimes inviting a concerted rhythmic pulsation from the ensemble, slipping into a melodic bliss or a chaotic breakdown, in the process of course inviting an individual response within the listener. One other quite original element that introduced a hard to define character to the composition was the threading of motifs and indeed riffs, from heavy rock band System of a Down's 'Toxicity' throughout the composition. The title of the composition indeed comes from the last line of the song 'When I became the sun I shone life into the man's hearts'. It served perhaps as the human counterpart to the flute's sun and the ensemble's Earth responsiveness, but certainly brought additional dynamism to the conceptual and musical flavour of the piece.

External links: Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble

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 Andronovska 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 Andronovska 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