Three works by CMC Composers to be performed at 2024 ISCM World New Music Days: Faroe Islands
The 2024 organisers for the ISCM World New Music Days Festival have announced their selection including three works by CMC Composers Rhona Clarke, Eric Egan and Francis Heery.
The ISCM World New Music Days festival is an annual international showcase of new music representing contemporary work from across the globe. For the 2024 edition, the festival will take place in Tórshavn the Faroe Islands from 22 – 30 June.
The works selected for performance in 2024 in the Faroe Islands have been drawn from ISCM official section nominations and independent artist submissions made to the festival organisers. The Contemporary Music Centre, the official Irish Section of the ISCM, nominated 6 works by composers Rhona Clarke, Eric Egan, Francis Heery, Óscar Mascareñas, Ailís Ní Ríain and Jane O'Leary for consideration by the festival organisers. The Irish Section nominations were selected by an independent panel following a call for works from CMC-represented composers and former Association of Irish Composers. Of these 6 nominated works, one piece was to be guaranteed a performance at the festival.
On the announcement of the three works selected from the Irish Section nominations, CMC Director Evonne Ferguson said:
The ISCM World New Music Days festival provides a significant platform for New Music artists to share their work - reaching international audiences on a global stage. CMC is delighted that three nominated works from the Irish Section have been selected by the festival organisers for World New Music Days 2024: Faroe Islands.
Irish Section Works Selected
Rhona Clarke - O Vis Aeternitatis (2020) for choir.
O Vis Aeternitatis' is a setting of a responsory text by Hildegard of Bingen. Dated c.1150, the words centre on the power of eternity, a concept often linked with divinity. In this musical setting, the structure is changed slightly, leaving out the final response and ending instead with the half-doxology: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto which is given a lively, fugal treatment. The opening melisma is influenced by Hildegard's musical setting. O Vis Aeternitatis was commissioned by Music for Galway for the Abendmusik series with funds from Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture. It was premiered by Resurgam, conducted by Peter Whelan on 22 November 2020.
Eric Egan - in some or other Oasis | (i en eller annen Oase) (2014), for string chamber ensemble.
In some or other Oasis' is about loneliness and loss; about the solitude of existence, as an infinitesimal part of an ungraspable totality. Apart from small differences, we are all the same – for better or for worse we are products of our past and pieces on the world's game board. In a game that moves indomitably from moment to moment. The piece is an attempt at capturing such a moment - to focus our gaze at an ephemeral moment of common consciousness - a beautiful and timeless move through which all the pieces fall into place.
Francis Heery - Towards A Soteriological Theory Of Bog Bodies (2023), for prepared piano, electric guitar and fixed audio. Written for performance at Music Current Dublin in 2023.
Towards A Soteriological Theory of Bog Bodies' employs a fixed media soundscape and a printed score to create a sonic psycho-geography of the Irish bog-lands. The performers are invited to psychologically inhabit the score and soundscape in an attempt to express the en-magik’d aura of central Ireland. The printed score is an example of ‘affectivenotation’ I am developing. This is a structured but non-linear layering of musical/expressive directions through images and words. It is designed to guide the performers to accurately render my own idiosyncratic perspective of this specific geographical area.
See the full announcement of World New Music Days 2024: Faroe Islands repertoire selections at the ISCM website here.