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viewing 1 To 23 of 23 items
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ERGODOS 030CD
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Winter is the debut release from Ficino Ensemble, a group of flexible size specializing in the rich repertoire of classical chamber music -- a tradition of intimacy, introspection, poise, and exchange to which they bring such insight in performance. Here, they present three works -- Brahms's "August Clarinet Quintet of 1891", Ravel's virtuosic "Introduction and Allegro" (1905); to the title track, "Winter", by Irish composer Garrett Sholdice, composed especially for this project in 2018 In some respects Brahms's "Clarinet Quintet" looks back to the elegant designs of Mozart's "Clarinet Quintet". Yet in its deliberate patterns of speech its richly dark hues, the music is deeply personal -- each movement the revelation of a secret. Ravel's "Introduction and Allergo", for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet, is brighter -- evoking, perhaps, the particular radiance of sunshine on a December morning. In "Winter", for harp, clarinet, and string trio, Garrett Sholdice provides a fulcrum about which the Brahms and Ravel may balance each other. This is a work entirely concerned with re-colorings and shadings of musical material. At its core, it is a ritual that simultaneously moves and stays still. Ficino Ensemble was formed by its artistic director Nathan Sherman in 2012. Their concerts have been described as exciting and intimate with a high caliber of ensemble playing. The members of the group are recognized in Ireland and abroad as soloists and chamber musicians.
Garrett Sholdice (b. 1983) is an Irish composer. His music has been described as possessing an "exquisite delicacy" (The Irish Times). Notable recent works include "The Root and the Crown", a twenty-minute ensemble work, commissioned by Crash Ensemble.
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ERGODOS 028LP
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Seán Mac Erlaine's richly-textured woodwind sound meets an expanded palette on Music For Empty Ears, the Irish musician's breathtaking new album. Having honed his distinctively-shaped soliloquies over his first two solo records, Mac Erlaine's work now bears the mark of collaborations with Norwegian luminaries Jan Bang and Eivind Aarset to reveal a fresh, variegated musical language. The album journeys through a splendor of musical shades: from the gently insistent minimal grooves and hushed invocations of tracks such as "The Melting Song"; to slow pans across dark, saturated vistas on tracks such as "Winter Flat Map"; to a warm, celebratory treatment of the Irish traditional tune "An Buachaill Caol Dubh"; and to moments of visceral, splintered abstraction in "Love The Way They Sing" and "The Alchemist III". Whether it's the elusive vocals of Galway singer Sadhbh Ní Dhálaigh or Mac Erlaine's sublime clarinet melodies that catch you, Music For Empty Ears is an album that reveals more and more with each listen. Bespoke print by Dublin design studio Destinctive Repetition. Comes on heavy-weight vinyl.
Seán Mac Erlaine is a Dublin-based woodwind instrumentalist, composer and music producer, recognized as one of Ireland's most forward-thinking creative musicians. Mac Erlaine works in a variety of settings from free improvisation, contemporary jazz, folk music and experimental theatre, and is a member of the groups This Is How We Fly and the Quiet Music Ensemble. "One of the most interesting and adventurous musicians of his generation" --The Irish Times.
Electronic musician/producer Jan Bang has worked with such luminaries as Jon Hassell, David Sylvian, Brian Eno, and Arve Henriksen. From his work as a pop producer in the '90s, his pioneering work in developing the concept of live remix has led to him being constantly in-demand as producer and performer today. "[Jan Bang is] defying all misconceptions about the vast potential of electronic composition." --All About Jazz
Eivind Aarset is a guitarist with a unique musical vision that absorbs and reflects all manner of music while retaining an enviable individualism and high quality craftsmanship that can span from quiet intimacy to searing intensity. As one of Norway's most in-demand guitarists, Eivind Aarset has worked with Jon Hassell, David Sylvian, Bill Laswell, Jan Garbarek, and many more. "Norwegian Eivind Aarset is in a class of his own proving that lyricism and raw noise aren't contradictory." --The Guardian
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ERGODOS 027LP
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Jonathan Nangle is a Dublin composer whose work explores many diverse fields -- from notated acoustic and electro-acoustic compositions, through live and spatially distributed electronics, to video, sound installation, and electronic improvisation. His transcendent music for strings comes to life in these luminous recordings by Crash Ensemble, Ireland's leading ensemble for adventurous new music. This is music of serene focus; often fragile, always intricately woven. In "Where Distant City Lights Flicker On Half-Frozen Ponds", Nangle enhances a solo violin with electronic resonators which subtly color the musical material like a heat shimmer. "My Heart Stopped A Thousand Beats" is a slow ritual for viola and cello, unfurling into a series of fragments. The mercurial title track "Pause" was inspired by the idea of data glitches in both music and visual media. A snippet of music by early twentieth-century American composer Charles Ives is processed, rearranged, and deliberately glitched, serving as a springboard to new material. The two "Fragment" tracks also featured on the album are short improvisations on passages that occur within "Pause" -- reflections of fleeting images. The album closes with "Tessellate" for cello and electronics, inspired by the phenomena of tessellations, where a shape is repeated over and over again, covering a plane without any gaps. RIYL: Kronos Quartet, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, Kevin Volans, David Lang, Ólafur Arnalds, Nico Muhly.
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ERGODOS 026LP
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The product of three years of work, The Weathered Stone marks Benedict Schlepper-Connolly out as a voice of compelling individuality. Inspired by the secret histories of landscapes, old maps and memory, this is music that possesses the ecstatic, unforced beauty of the natural world. Across only four tracks, the Dublin composer lays out a many-hued musical statement that is at once minimal and teeming with matter. The monumental opening track, "The Weathered Stone," and the explosive string quartet that follows, "A View From Above," both deal in large, distinct, swathes of music in which a pattern warps elegantly over time. Schlepper-Connolly was inspired here by the corrosion and erosion of building materials and landscapes. He writes: "Landscapes erode, reshape and accumulate; my use of musical material here behaves in a similar way, with musical states exposed to time and altered, often subtly, sometimes more violently." "Beekeepers," which Schlepper-Connolly sings himself, forms the record's intimate core. A song of memory, reflection and renewal, "Beekeepers" reveals new, expansive possibilities latent within Schlepper-Connolly's musical language. These are further explored in the harmonically lush closing track, "Field", which is again inspired by the action of time on the land. "In 'Field'," the composer writes, "musical material is much like earthly material: it retains many of its features over time, but its surface is continually transformed." The Weathered Stone features performances of extraordinary grace and virtuosity, with the Robinson Panoramic Quartet, and pianist Saskia Lankhoorn, and reedman Seán Mac Erlaine, joining Schlepper-Connolly to bring his vivid music to life. Benedict Schlepper-Connolly is a composer and producer from Dublin. As a composer, he moves between various musical forms, including chamber music, choral writing, orchestral work, arrangement, songwriting, field recording and music for dance and film. Benedict's compositions frequently seek out an ecstatic quality, with a reduced palette of materials, rich tonal harmonies and rhythmic intricacy.
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ERGODOS 009CD
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2013 release. Ergodos Musicians present I Call to You. I Call to You is a record of music inspired by baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach, and performed by the Dublin-based group Ergodos Musicians. A project conceived in the darker moments of Ireland's financial crisis, this is music that underlines a sense of hope, and renewal. "... perhaps the most important record of new Irish music released this year. Five stars." -- RTÉ Ten. "... characteristically intelligent, inquisitive and full of altogether beguiling sounds. With baroque sensibilities left intact, the overall tone here is contemplative and quietly celebratory ... one of the year's most beautiful and moving discs. Five stars." -- Classical Ear.
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ERGODOS 010CD
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2013 release. Jonathan Sage presents Counterpoint. A captivating release by one of England's finest young musicians combining three different approaches to counterpoint, an elemental musical technique running through centuries of music. Compositions by Steve Reich, Johann Sebastian Bach and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly. "In every track Jonathan's playing is excellent [...] I found myself listening to ['Another Country' by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly] time after time. Excellent!" -- Kenneth Morris, Clarinet and Saxophone Society Magazine.
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ERGODOS 003LP
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2011 release. Maya Homburger and Barry Guy present Star. Star features three meditative string duos by Irish composers Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, Garrett Sholdice and Simon O'Connor. These three works, each composed specifically for the incomparable Baroque violin/double bass duo of Maya Homburger and Barry Guy, are a reminder of the value of concentration, quietude, and slowness.
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ERGODOS 008LP
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2012 release. Includes download code. Long After The Music Is Gone is a solo album from Dublin-based woodwind instrumentalist and composer Seán Mac Erlaine. It's an album of extraordinary ambience, rich with Mac Erlaine's distinctive supple reed work and subtle electronics. With each track Mac Erlaine seems to channel the atmosphere of a space or vista, immersing the listener. Artwork by Dominic Thorpe. "An extraordinary solo recording... consistently one of the most interesting and adventurous musicians of his generation. Four stars." -- The Irish Times. "Curiously lovely tunes... I want to hear everything that Seán Mac Erlaine's ever done. Compliments don't get much bigger." -- Hot Press.
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ERGODOS 011CD
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2013 release. Toner Quinn and Malachy Bourke present Live At The Steeple Sessions. Appearing together for the first time in many years, fiddle duo Toner Quinn and Malachy Bourke performed Dublin's Unitarian Church in June 2011. This is a record of that concert - a document of two of Ireland's finest traditional musicians re-visiting and evolving a shared, highly personal language. "A distilled delight." -- The Irish Times.
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ERGODOS 014CD
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2014 release. Ergodos Musicians present All The Ends Of The Earth. Revelatory, celebratory music by Garrett Sholdice, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Linda Buckley inspired by Christmas music by a mediæval master, known simply as Léonin, and performed by Ergodos Musicians: vocalist Michelle O'Rourke, clarinetist Jonathan Sage and cellist Kate Ellis, with Sholdice and Schlepper-Connolly on piano and guitar respectively. "[An] eloquent meditation... The mood is spiritual, perhaps, but hardly sectarian, with a warm bath production style taking full advantage of studio effects" -- I Care If You Listen Magazine.
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ERGODOS 013CD
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2014 release. Ergodos Musicians present Songs. Working with the members of Ergodos Musicians, composers Garrett Sholdice and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly arrange, re-compose, weave and stitch material drawn from the songs they love, spanning over 800 years of music, from John Dowland and Vivaldi to Steve Earle, Richard Thompson and The xx. Working closely with vocalist Michelle O'Rourke, reed player Seán Mac Erlaine and cellist Kate Ellis, they celebrate the way a melody or a lyric can live in memory, heart and limb. A 13th century hymn becomes a spacious meditation over a drone. An opera aria by Vivaldi becomes understated jazz. Sholdice takes a fragment of contemporary Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy's Yeats setting, "The White Birds" and transforms the original, re-imagining the material as a forgotten folk-song, very different from Dennehy's taut rhythmic landscape. Schlepper-Connolly's shimmering take on the traditional song "I Am Weary Of Lying Alone" becomes a vehicle for an incisive, biting sax solo from Seán Mac Erlaine. The devotional melancholy of Richard Thompson's "Beat The Retreat" is complimented by an hauntingly spare version of Dowland's "Weep You No More, Sad Fountains". American alt-country singer Steve Earle's "Goodbye" becomes a mercurial lament in Schlepper-Connolly's hands, while Sholdice's transcription of a Javanese gamelan "Ladrang" is elegant in its simplicity. The album closes with a tender, intimate re-coloring of "Angels" by UK indie trio The xx. "Nothing could better exemplify the continued vitality of the song tradition. Four stars." -- "CD Choice", The Irish Times.
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ERGODOS 017CD
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2015 release. Rise Up, My Love is the fresh and vital debut record from the Irish Youth Chamber Choir, under their conductor Greg Beardsell. Rise Up, My Love features music by contemporary choral masters Howard Skempton, Gabriel Jackson, Pēteris Vasks and Eric Whitacre. "... a musical calling card of consummate elegance..." -- Michael Quinn, Classical Ear.
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ERGODOS 015CD
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2014 release. What Was is the first release devoted entirely to the music of Judith Ring. Painterly, sensuous, dark and beautiful music from one of Ireland's most important composers. Ring's work is first and foremost with the pulse in the arm that glides the bow over the string. She does not begin with a highly abstract, one-dimensional idea of that sound in notation. Her process can be described as truly experimental, in the sense of Charles Ives: open, aware, conscious, hopeful. Features performances from some of the finest exponents of new Irish music, including Paul Roe, Kate Ellis, Malachy Robinson, Michelle O'Rourke, Natasha Lohan and Concorde, as well as genre-crossing performers such as Laura Moody and Beau Stocker. "... the Vinko Globokar-esque imaginings of composer Judith Ring..." -- I Care If You Listen Magazine.
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ERGODOS 012CD
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2013 release. There Are Neither Wholes Nor Parts is the debut album from Scott McLaughlin, an Irish composer of immersive, experimental music, currently based in the UK. Immediately arresting and all-consuming, the album features highly focused performances by Quatour Bozzini, Trio Scordatura, Jonathan Sage, Iain Harrison, and the Metastable Collective. "This album is a delivery system for concentrated listening [...] it comes highly recommended..." Stephen Graham, Tempo.
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ERGODOS 018LP
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2015 release. Christopher Fox and Anton Lukoszevieze present Re:play. Along with the CD release The Feeling Of Remembering (ERGODOS 018CD, 2015), this release presents beautifully introspective music for cello by English composer Christopher Fox, performed by Anton Lukoszevieze. Both formats share much of the same music - but each format frames the material in its own unique way, making for a beautiful, mutually enriching, collectable pair. "a distinct flavour of distilled Elizabethan melancholia." -- Philip Clark, The Wire.
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ERGODOS 018CD
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2015 release. Christopher Fox and Anton Lukoszevieze present The Feeling Of Remembering. Along with the vinyl release Re:play (ERGODOS 018LP, 2015), this release presents beautifully introspective music for cello by English composer Christopher Fox, performed by Anton Lukoszevieze. Both formats share much of the same music - but each format frames the material in its own unique way, making for a beautiful, mutually enriching, collectable pair. "a distinct flavour of distilled Elizabethan melancholia." -- Philip Clark, The Wire.
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ERGODOS 019CD
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2015 release. Frankie Gavin, Malachy Bourke and Brian Bourke present The Master's Return: A Tribute to Paddy Killoran. Renowned fiddle player Frankie Gavin, who co-founded the highly influential super-group Dé Danann, joins forces with the father-and-son duo of Malachy Bourke (fiddle) and Brian Bourke (bodhrán) to explore the spry and athletic repertoire of early twentieth-century Sligo-American fiddler, Paddy Killoran (1904-1965).
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ERGODOS 020CD
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2015 release. An album of chamber music by South Africa-born composer Kevin Volans, Violin:Piano features luminous, absorbing performances from violinist Waldo Alexander and pianist Jill Richards. Violin:Piano features premiere recordings of three major duos from 2009 - "Violin:Piano", "Etude 9" for piano and electronics, and "Viola:Piano" - as well as the violin solo "Passi Leggieri", originally composed for Norwegian hardanger fiddle in 2003. Sensitively performed by two experienced interpreters of Volans's music, this music is all about the contour of the moment. From its first sumptuous gesture, each piece absorbs completely, promising an adventure of luminous beauty. "Collaboration with Kronos Quartet boosted the public profile of Kevin Volans. That level of exposure doesn't suit a composer who is too flexible to be locked into expectations. On this absorbing release violinist Waldo Alexander and pianist Jill Richards interpret relatively new pieces." -- The Wire, December 2015.
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ERGODOS 024EP
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This debut release from David Collier is an engrossing sweep of the Irish composer's recent work. The nuanced and expansive meditations of the string quartet "Smacht" are presented together with the pulsating brilliance of "Dusk", a dazzling work for four percussionists. Collier's compositions - sharp-focused and sincere - radiate warmth and vitality, and are presented in a beautiful vinyl edition with artwork by Louise Gaffney.
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ERGODOS 022CD
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Franz Schubert's Impromptus, Opus 90, were composed in 1827, the year before the composer's death at the age of 31. Schubert: Four Impromptus juxtaposes these limpid, yet emotionally complex piano pieces with companion interludes by three Irish composers. Simon O'Connor's "Self Portrait" lovingly traces back over the shapes of the first impromptu, whilst at the same time interpolating strokes that are more typical of his own style. "Was Du Mir Warst" ("What You Were To Me") by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly takes its title from a letter that Schubert wrote in his final days. Rhapsodic and intimate, the music is constantly reflecting back on itself, yet always tumbling forward. With dark colors, saturation and a sense of getting lost, Garrett Sholdice's "The Dreams Flow Down, Too" refers to Schubert's song "Nacht Und Träume" ("Night And Dreams"), both in its title and in the quoted music of its ending. Michael McHale's sensitive performances allow our perceptions of what is familiar and what is strange to shift. The listener becomes immersed in a new world: expansive, dark and organismal. Belfast-born Michael McHale is one of Ireland's leading pianists. Michael's debut solo album The Irish Piano (2012) was selected as "CD of the Week" by critic Norman Lebrecht, who described it as "a scintillating recital - fascinating from start to stop", whilst Gramophone praised, "the singing sensibility of McHale's sensitive and polished pianism". Ergodos produces concerts and recordings, and runs its own ensemble, Ergodos Musicians.
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ERGODOS 025CD
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Written between 2008 and 2013, Enclosures is a treasury of chamber music highlighting Netherlands-based composer Peter Adriaansz's fastidious artistic mind. These works all possess seductive surfaces but their extremely careful designs make for profound, even revelatory experiences. "His work is abstract music of a high order, reanimating the medieval idea of music as applied number," wrote the late writer and performer Bob Gilmore, to whose memory this record is dedicated, "But the questions it asks are defiantly of the twenty-first century, questions about musical perception, about the nature of sound and the passage of time." "Attachments", written for pianist Saskia Lankhoorn, carefully explores and exploits different sonic aspects of a specially-prepared piano. Supple rhythmic patterns are back-lit by droning sine tones to create redolent atmospheres, gently flickering and undulating. "Phrase" and "Fraction" were composed as companion pieces for the Hague-based Ensemble Klang. The former is nearly hallucinatory in its singular treatment of a melody on soprano saxophone. The latter - a fervent world of strummed, picked and hammered metal strings - takes after American composer Henry Cowell's harmonic tempo scales, where the music's speed is intertwined with the intervals of the harmony. The record finishes with "Enclosures", composed for Amsterdam microtonal music specialists, Trio Scordatura. Over time, people become attuned to the most subtle gradations of sonic interval - people are deeply immersed and emerge newly sensitized. Peter Adriaansz (pronounced 'pay-ter ah-dree-ons') was born in Seattle in 1966 and studied composition at the conservatories of The Hague and Rotterdam, where his teachers included Louis Andriessen, Brian Ferneyhough and Peter-Jan Wagemans. Adriaansz's work can be characterized by a systematic, research-oriented approach towards music, an approach in which sound, structure and audible mathematics constitute the main ingredients. Starting in 2005, an increasing interest in flexibility, variable forms and - especially - microtonal reflection can also be observed in his work. This latter interest led, among other works, to several large-scale compositions for amplified ensembles.
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ERGODOS 021CD
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What Is Living And What Is Dead marks the solo debut of Irish composer Simon O'Connor on the Ergodos label. An immaculately crafted, beautiful and poignant collection of nine piano pieces, this album is the result of over three years work from conception to release. "I wanted to create something that could make a profound emotional connection with people, music that could really draw listeners inward to themselves and awaken a sense of joy in the beauty of the world around them," says O'Connor of the 57-minute long collection, which takes its title from a lecture given by the late historian and social commentator Tony Judt, "More than ever, I felt the need to create music that could reconnect every listener to an innocent sense of wonder; music that takes its joy in simple melody and delicate harmony; music that is - at its core - an embodiment of optimism." Childlike melodies are pitched against ever-changing harmonic landscapes, in a desperate plea for beauty in a world gone austere. This is a wordless political polemic that cries out for more space, beauty, slowness and understanding in a time of pessimism and intellectual voids. Performed by Ireland's foremost young pianist Michael McHale, What Is Living And What Is Dead is the work of the Irish production duo of Garrett Sholdice and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly. Recorded in Berlin and then completed in Munich by renowned mastering engineer Christoph Stickel (ecm, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical). Simon O'Connor is a Dublin-based composer who formed seminal Dublin psych-rock band The Jimmy Cake. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied with composers Donnacha Dennehy and Kevin Volans, O'Connor has for many years worked primarily in a tonal, minimal palette, writing for chamber ensembles and solo musicians.
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ERGODOS 023CD
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Written by composer and curator Simon O'Connor, and commissioned and presented by vocalist Michelle O'Rourke, Left Behind is a new collection of songs to mark the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising. Drawing on the experiences of the wives of prominent rebel leaders, O'Rourke and O'Connor have created a unique suite of compositions that offer an emotional, human perspective on a narrative that is too often told in baldly male heroic terms. Beginning life as simple vocal/piano pieces, these songs have been transformed with the addition of O'Connor's former bandmates from celebrated Dublin rock band The Jimmy Cake and The Robinson Panoramic Quartet, a dynamic Dublin-based string ensemble. These ensembles bring a dramatic energy to the retelling of the stories of Maud Gonne, Grace and Muriel Gifford, Agnes Mallin and others. "So much of our engagement with history is purely political, and so rarely we allow ourselves to read between the lines to find human realities," says O'Connor, "Sinéad McCoole's book, Easter Widows (2014), the key historical reference for this work, allowed us to empathize with and understand the human cost, the real life narratives of the revolutionary period." "More so than any art form, music places us squarely in this emotional space," adds vocalist Michelle O'Rourke, "With these songs, we hope to give life to some of these feelings, these emotions and the sense of loss felt by many women and children who were left behind by men who were dominated by what they felt was a higher calling." Praise for the premiere performance of Left Behind: "The moody, slender, ethereal settings of Left Behind- held together by O'Rourke and the extraordinary beauty of her voice." -- Michael Dervan, The Irish Times. "a searingly sad tribute to the 1916 widows [...] beautifully crafted and very affecting" -- The Sunday Business Post. "There was no shortage of music contributions for the 1916 centenary, but I doubt if there was anything more original or insightful than this thought-provoking collection that focused not on the rebel leaders, but on their wives and sweethearts." -- The Sunday Business Post.
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