504K

For Immediate Release

The Contemporary Music Centre announces major new festival: New Music Dublin, 1-3 March 2013

11 January 2013

New Music Dublin is a major new festival that gives voice to a broad range of musical creativity from our time by showcasing the work of major international and Irish figures to the public, and through the involvement of many Irish artists.

NMD is a new partnership initiative of The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, The National Concert Hall, RTÉ Orchestras and the Contemporary Music Centre. It will take place in the NCH on March 1st, 2nd and 3rd 2013 and is the first event arising from a planned five-year partnership. The Arts Council is providing significant funding to New Music Dublin (see below for further background information regarding each of the partner organisations).

NMD offers audiences the opportunity to immerse themselves in many different types of new music. The 2013 Festival includes the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, directed by virtuoso trombonist Christian Lindberg in the world premiere of Lindberg's new work Kundraan and the Arctic Light; the RTÉ Concert Orchestra performing the Irish premieres of Arvo Pärt's Symphony No. 4 and Louis Andriessen's De Staat; Garth Knox bringing his ECM project Saltarello to Dublin; the serene voices of the Hilliard Ensemble paired with the haunting music of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannson; Crash Ensemble with European voices new to Ireland including Heiner Goebbels and Michel van der Aa; Callino Quartet with a world premiere by Kevin Volans; The Fidelio Trio in performances and workshops; late night events including the cosmopolitan duo A Winged Victory For The Sullen and many other activities throughout the weekend.

The Contemporary Music Centre will play an important role in New Music Dublin, hosting a number of events that promote and support Irish composition: the Contemporary Music Centre's New Music Marathon, in conjunction with TCD Music Composition Centre, showcasing the emerging voices of new music; a composition seminar for CMC composers with Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud and the Fidelio Trio; a Raymond Deane focus marking the composer's 60th Birthday which will include a new short film about the composer commissioned by CMC from documentary film maker Mark Linnane.

In addition, CMC will play a role in supporting the Creative Labs for emerging ensembles, which will be running for the duration of the weekend. CMC's photographic and multimedia exhibition The Art of Sound will be on display, offering audiences at New Music Dublin a glimpse into the creative process viewed through the work of Irish composers.

In keeping with its role as the resource centre for Irish composition, the Contemporary Music Centre will document the festival, making it available to a wider audience through its archive and website.

Evonne Ferguson, Director of the Contemporary Music Centre says:

I can't wait for an entire weekend of immersion in such unique sound worlds from Ireland and abroad that puts Irish composition in a wider European and international context. I'm looking forward to the buzz in the National Concert Hall as audiences engage with all the wonderful performances and innovative events in New Music Dublin. Highlights for us will be the screening of our short film on Raymond Deane, getting to know student composers in the New Music Marathon and supporting the development of emerging composers through the workshop with Johannes Maria Staud and the Fidelio Trio. I'm delighted that Crash Ensemble will feature works from the New Music: New Audiences project, a major Europe-wide initiative designed to share repertoire between countries and to develop audiences for new music. The Contemporary Music Centre is the lead Irish partner, with Crash Ensemble and the Galway Ensemble-in-Residence, ConTempo, as the participating Irish ensembles. (www.newaud.eu). My only problem for the weekend: How not to miss anything!"

The festival forms part of Ireland's EU Presidency Cultural Programme, and at a time when our relationship with Europe is undergoing much discussion, is an opportunity to celebrate the diverse creative nature of the current generation of European and Irish artists. NMD will platform a wide variety of new music in traditional and in surprising formats, engaging with audiences in many different ways, using known and unknown corners of the National Concert Hall, offering music that will entertain, stimulate and provoke.

Artists performing at NMD include:

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, CHRISTIAN LINDBERG, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON, HILLIARD ENSEMBLE, A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLLEN, GARTH KNOX, CRASH ENSEMBLE, CALLINO QUARTET, COUNTERPARTS, FIDELIO TRIO AND OTHERS.

Full details of New Music Dublin can be found below. For further information about the information in this press release contact:

Sam Wilcock, Promotion Manager, Contemporary Music Centre, 19 Fishamble Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 8. (Tel: 01 673 1922 / email: swilcock@cmc.ie / web site: www.cmc.ie)

Further information about New Music Dublin: Gavin O'Sullivan (+353 87 2456971 / press@newmusicdublin.ie)

Festival Schedule

Friday 1 March, John Field Room, 1.05pm €9/10
GARTH KNOX: SALTARELLO

Garth Knox, viola
Agnès Vesterman, cello
Sylvian Lemêtre, percussion

Many instrumental compositions in music history, even if they're called sonata, suite, sinfonia or even fantasia, are essentially dances. Under the title Saltarello, a 14th-century fast Italian dance in ¾ time that survives today as a folk dance, viola player Garth Knox couples works stretching from the 12th century to the present day and demonstrates how fragile, even arbitrary, is the line drawn between art and folk music, but also that between old music and new sounds. Knox presents his own works alongside music by Hildegard von Bingen; he juxtaposes the exquisite Renaissance sounds of John Dowland against pieces by Kaija Saariaho that make subtle use of electronics, and sets arrangements of traditional melodies and anonymous dance movements against Henry Purcell's Music for a while – a sensuous survey of 1000 years of musical events. Having reached Number One in the Billboard Classical Charts, Irish musician Garth Knox brings his ECM project Saltarello to Dublin for the first time.

Friday 1 March, Main Auditorium, 8.00pm €18/20
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra
Christian Lindberg conductor/trombone

Jan Sandström: Ocean Child
Christian Lindberg: Kundraan and the Arctic Light - World Première
Jan Sandström: Indri/Cave Canem
Christian Lindberg: Peking Twilight

Jan Sandström and Christian Lindberg, two astonishing Swedish artists, who share an infectious pleasure in virtuosic music that celebrates life, disregards boundaries and which frequently surprises. Lindberg first came to prominence as the performer who could make the trombone do unnatural things; his more recent work as composer and conductor have carried this energy with him. Following the success of his 2011 collaboration directing and conducting the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, and his solo recital in which he was hailed by the Irish Times as 'a virtuoso at the top of his game', Lindberg returns to direct from the trombone the world première of Kundraan and the Arctic Light, the third part of a trilogy based on Lindberg's own fictitious character Kundraan who wrestles with angels and demons within himself. With this, three orchestral works conducted by Lindberg: his own virtuosic Peking Twilight, 'a tribute to the city of Norrköping, with its great fooball team with the nickname "Peking"'; Jan Sandström's Ocean Child, inspired by a snorkelling trip taken by the composer with his daughter in Thailand and described by him as 'a tribute to life, to curiosity and childish naivety...an attempt to recreate my childhood dreams about music' and Indri/Cave Canem (Beware of the Dog), which, with its free form, rhythmic vitality and colourful writing reflecting a 'pack of wild dogs with no other thought than to go where their noses lead them exudes a boundless curiosity and joie de vivre'.

Saturday 2 March, John Field Room, 1.05pm €9/10
Counterparts: JOYCE IN DUBLIN AND PARIS

Dominique Pifarély, violin
Michael Buckley, saxophones
Stéphane Payen, saxophones
Ronan Guilfoyle, bass,
Christophe Lavergne, drums

A new work by Ronan Guilfoyle commissioned by the National Concert Hall with funds provided by the Arts Council is an innovative musical piece inspired by the music quoted in the works of James Joyce, specifically the works written in Dublin and Paris. Partly written and partly improvised, as well as utilizing street sounds from Dublin and Paris, the piece also uses text from various works both as a generator for the music, and in spoken word format as an integral part of the piece. The suite reveals new aspects to the musicality of Joyce's prose, and creates a unique environment for improvising musicians to explore the work of Joyce through musical means.

Saturday 2 March, Main Auditorium, 7.30pm €18/20
RTÉ CONCERT ORCHESTRA
Reinbert de Leeuw conductor

Arvo Pärt: Symphony No. 4
Louis Andriessen: De Staat

Music as a political tool as conceived by two of Europe's elder statesmen of composition, two remarkably individual voices, both of whom strive for a purity of approach but with startlingly different results. Arvo Pärt's Symphony No. 4 is a recent work (2009) that offers direct criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pärt dedicates this work to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oil executive and political dissident who has been jailed by Putin. It is also offered to all Russians jailed without rights. Andriessen's De Staat (1976) considers the relationship of music to politics; how it can and can't have an influence. Regarded as a seminal work of contemporary European composition, its dynamic, pulsating score has attracted a strong cult following over its lifetime. This is the Irish première of both works.

Saturday 2 March, Main Auditorium, 10.00pm €13.50/15
A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN

For the uninitiated, A Winged Victory For The Sullen is the first instalment of the new collaboration between ex-Sparklehorse musician Adam Wiltzie and composer Dustin O'Halloran, a friendship that has brought forth an offspring of truly curative compositions for the world to savour. AWVFTS mix classical, ambient and post-rock sounds to create sonorous and cinematic music that moves.

Sunday 3 March, John Field Room, 1.05pm €9/10
CALLINO QUARTET

Anton Webern: Langsamer Satz
Valentin Silvestrov: Ikon
Ian Wilson: In fretta, in vento (String Quartet No.6)
John Tavener: Ikon of Joy and Sorrow
Kevin Volans: String Quartet No. 11 (Chakra for String Quartet) - World Première

Kevin Volans' new quartet is presented in the context of a rich programme of soul-searching music. From the ravishing sounds of early Webern in his starting point of uber-romanticism to the spiritually based Ikon works of Valentin Silvestrov and John Tavener, both devout and contemplative, harking back to early music sounds. Also included is Ian Wilson's personal reflection on the 9/11 attacks, his string quartet In fretta, in vento. The concert culminates with Kevin Volans' new work, the latest offering from the composer of hit string quartets such as White Man Sleeps

Sunday 3 March, Engineering Library, 5.30pm €13.50/15
CRASH ENSEMBLE: EUROPA
Alan Pierson conductor
Sylvia O'Brien guest vocalist

Simon Steen Andersen: Chambered Music
Georg Fredrich Haas: String Quartet No.5
Heiner Goebbels: Red Run (Nine Songs for Eleven Instruments)
Michel Van Der Aa: Here (In Circles)

Crash Ensemble continues its pioneering work of introducing the work of major international composers to Irish audiences. This programme surveys some creative European names in a programme that revels in the diversity of approach of these artists. Danish composer Simon Steen Andersen's Chambered Music uses texts from Nelson Mandela's prisoner diaries, but mostly in unrecognizable forms. The work is both virtuosic and theatrical. Austrian Georg Fredrich Hass smashes open the string quartet by placing the players apart from one another with the audience on the inside, revelling in the complex textures. Heiner Goebbels, one of Germany's most distinctive voices, wrote Red Run as a ballet – this is a concert reduction, with a deconstructed jazz-club feel. Dutch composer Michel Van Der Aa's "Here" trilogy, explores the relationship of the individual (soprano) to her surroundings, using theatrical and visual elements.

Note:
Crash Ensemble are currently participants in New Music:New Audiences, a major Europe-wide initiative designed to share repertoire between counties and to develop audiences for new music. The Contemporary Music Centre is the lead Irish partner, with Crash Ensemble and the Galway Ensemble-in-Residence, ConTempo, as the participating Irish ensembles. (www.newaud.eu)

Sunday 3 March, Main Auditorium, 8.00pm €18/20
JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON + THE HILLIARD ENSEMBLE

Jóhann Jóhannsson is an Iceland-born musician, composer and producer. Jóhann's stately, slow-building and hauntingly melodic music, which frequently combines electronics with classical orchestrations, has been quietly bewitching listeners since he released his first solo record Englabörn in 2002 on the well-respected British label Touch. Jóhannson is also an award-winning film composer with eight international feature film credits to his name as well as a composer for theatre and contemporary dance. He is a prolific collaborator, having worked and performed with artists such as Marc Almond (Stranger Things album), Barry Adamson and Pan Sonic, The Hafler Trio, Jaki Liebezeit, Laetitia Sadier, David Tibet, Baby Dee, Larsen and many more.

The Hilliard Ensemble is unrivalled for its formidable reputation in the fields of both early and new music. Its distinctive style and highly developed musicianship engage the listener as much in medieval and renaissance repertoire as in works specially written by living composers, often in an orchestral context. Collaborations include the world premiere of Stephen Hartke's 3rd Symphony with Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, they have also collaborated with the Munich Chamber Orchestra with a new work by Erkki-Sven Tüür. In 2007 they joined forces with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra to premiere Nunc Dimittis by the Russian composer Alexander Raskatov, also recording this for ECM. With the release of their third collaboration with Jan Garbarek on the ECM label, Officium Novum, the group continues to tour extensively in Europe. The Hilliard Ensemble remains one of the world's finest vocal chamber groups.

Workshops, Masterclasses and other EVENTS

• Participatory Choral Project with composer Brian Irvine

Here is the NEWS.......
This two - day project is aimed at experiencing the sheer excitement and joy of creating and performing a new piece of music. Under the direction of composer Brian Irvine the participants will work together to create a completely new piece of contemporary choral music. The making of the piece will be inspired by the news of the day and will involve playing and discovering different composition / improvisation / performance / recording and sampling techniques. At the end of the sessions the participants will perform the completed work at an informal public concert. Based on the philosophy that making and singing music is great fun and something that we all can do - we welcome people of all ages, backgrounds and experience. All you need is a willingness to sing and a rather self- effacing attitude to life!

Workshops Saturday 2nd 10:30 to 1pm and 2:30 to 5pm. Sunday 3rd 11-1:30pm
Informal Performance Sunday 3rd at 3pm.

• Raymond Deane Focus

Celebrating his 60th birthday in 2013, the Festival will feature a screening of a new documentary by Mark Linnane about Raymond Deane, commissioned by the Contemporary Music Centre. This will be followed by a performance of his works by members of Concorde and others.

• Fidelio Trio / Johannes Maria Staud - Composer Workshops and Performance

Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud (whose piano trio will receive its Irish premiere at the Festival) and the Fidelio Trio will be working with a number of Irish composers over the weekend. The Fidelio Trio will also be performing a programme of new European music featuring 3 Irish premières.

Luke Bedford: Chiaroscuro
Pascal Dusapin: Trio Rombach
Salvatore Sciarrino: Piano Trio
David Fennessy: Music for the pauses in a conversation between John Cage and Morton Feldman
Johannes Maria Staud: Für Balint Andras Varga

Further aspects of New Music Dublin will be announced over the coming weeks including details of Contemporary Music Centre's New Music Marathon and Art of Sound Exhibition, 1:1 Concerts, Creative Labs for emerging ensembles, panel-discussions, a performance of the winning work in the Jerome Hynes Young Composers' Award and a Festival club.

Booking Information:
Tickets available from the National Concert Hall.

Box Office 10am-6pm Mon to Sat
Telephone 01 417 0000, Fax 01 475 1507
Online: www.nch.ie, Email: info@nch.ie
No booking fees

For further information on any aspect of New Music Dublin please contact Gavin O'Sullivan
Phone: +353 87 2456971
Mail: press@newmusicdublin.ie

For updated information over the coming weeks go to:
Web: www.newmusicdublin.ie
Facebook: New Music Dublin [ facebook.com/newmusicdublin ]
Twitter: @newmusicdublin

RTÉ lyric fm is a media partner of New Music Dublin
and will be broadcasting live from the Festival.

Background Information on the Festival

New Music Dublin is a new partnership initiative whereby the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, the RTÉ Orchestras, the National Concert Hall and the Contemporary Music Centre are working together to create a major festival of contemporary music.

In addition to providing significant funding to New Music Dublin, the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon plays an important role in contemporary music by providing ongoing funding to specialist organisations including the Contemporary Music Centre and Crash Ensemble. Many other Arts Council funded music organisations make a significant contribution to contemporary music. The Council also offers awards to individual composers, musicians and organisations including project awards, commissions, bursaries, travel awards and festival grants.

The commitment to New Music Dublin arises as part of the Arts Council's ongoing response to its 2006 policy publication Sounds New.

RTÉ is the most significant employer of orchestral musicians in Ireland. The commissioning, performance and recording of contemporary music is a key element in the work of RTÉ Orchestras, Quartet and Choirs with notable highlights including the presentation of six contemporary music festivals dedicated to major international figures and involving the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet as well leading Irish and international specialist ensembles and soloists; the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's Horizons Contemporary Music Series; the Music Commissions scheme which recently announced six new commissions for RTÉ's orchestras, string quartet and choirs; a 2011 focus by the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet on the music of composers Frederick May and Frank Corcoran and the Irish Music Recording Project in collaboration with RTÉ Lyric fm and The Arts Council.

The National Concert Hall has a remit that includes the support of contemporary music. As more space has become available within the Earlsfort Terrace site, particularly through the Kevin Barry Room, the NCH has been able to respond flexibly and imaginatively to the needs of many contemporary music practitioners and organisations through offering space for rehearsals and performances. The National Concert Hall has received additional funding from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht towards the festival which forms part of the EU Presidency Cultural Programme.

The Contemporary Music Centre supports the work of composers throughout the Republic and Northern Ireland and engages in an ongoing programme of development works and innovative events and programmes to promote new Irish music at home and abroad. The Arts Council's annual support enables CMC to continue nurturing the composition and performance of new music in Ireland.

The festival forms part of Ireland's EU Presidency Cultural Programme.

The Arts Council's and National Concert Hall's participation in the Cultural Programme to mark Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union is supported by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht/ Tá rannpháirtíocht na Comhairle Ealaíon sa Chlár Cultúrtha chun comóradh a dhéanamh ar Uachtaránacht na hÉireann ar Chomhairle an Aontais Eorpaigh á tacú ag an Roinn Ealaíon, Oidhreachta agus Gaeltachta.

The Contemporary Music Centre
The Contemporary Music Centre is Ireland's national archive and resource centre for new music, supporting the work of composers throughout the Republic and Northern Ireland. It engages in an ongoing programme of development work to promote new Irish music at home and abroad, and is a member of the International Association of Music Information Centres (IAMIC). The Centre is used, nationally and internationally, by performers, composers, promoters and members of the public interested in finding out more about music in Ireland. Its library and sound archive, open to the public free of charge, contain the only comprehensive collection in existence of music by Irish composers. Extensive reference and advice services are available and the Centre's website provides access to CMC's resources for those who cannot visit in person.
www.cmc.ie