The 2004 Sligo New Music Festival takes place in the Model Arts and Niland Gallery over the weekend of 27/28 March. Under artistic director Ian Wilson, it continues last year’s successful format format of focusing on the music of a specific composer. This year it concentrates on British composer Rebecca Saunders (born 1967), one of her generation’s most distinctive musical voices with an impressive reputation in continental Europe. Her music is characterised by exhaustive research into the properties of the instruments she is writing for, so that they themselves become the basis of the work, rather than simply a conduit for musical ideas. Rich colours, physical immediacy, perpetual crashes and new beginnings, an ability to let the music go where it wants -- these are some of the essential elements of her approach. Five of her works from the last decade will be presented in two concerts by Germany’s leading new music ensemble, musikFabrik, which will be the Festival’s resident performers and will also present works by Lachenmann, Rihm and Ustvol’skaya. Rebecca Saunders will be present for the weekend and will take part in a public interview as well as leading the Composition Workshop.

The Festival’s late-night concert will include the Irish premiere of Boulez’s 3rd Sonata, given by one of Ireland’s most dynamic young pianists, Isabelle O’Connell, together with a new piece by Northern Irish composer, Eunan McCreesh.

Programme details: Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo