CMC announce Stone Drawn Circles Ireland and UK Tour supported by PRS Foundation Beyond Borders Funding
Photo by Néstor Romero Clemente
The Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland is delighted to announce the 2024/25 Ireland and UK tour by New Music ensemble Stone Drawn Circles, supported by PRS Foundation Beyond Borders funding.
Stone Drawn Circles inhabits a new space in Irish contemporary music, featuring six trailblazing artists with exploratory music at the heart of their practice: Lina Andonovska, flutes; Nathan Sherman, viola; Michelle O’Rourke, voice; Alex Petcu, percussion; Caimin Gilmore, double bass and Úna Monaghan, harp / sound design.
These six musicians believe in rich composer/performer dialogues and in the bending of traditional performance dynamics. The ensemble have curated a New Music programme which reflects this interest featuring works by Irish and Northern Irish composers Karen Power and Úna Monaghan, Australian Cate Hope, and Canadian Nicole Lizée.
The Stone Drawn Circles : In Formation tour will include a new commission by Northern Irish composer Brian Irvine, whose dynamic and shape shifting music resonates with the ensemble’s creative vision.
On the announcement of the Stone Drawn Circles : In Formation tour, CMC Composer Brian Irvine said:
I am absolutely delighted to be working with Stone Drawn Circles on a new work. I have known and worked with most of the members individually over recent years on various projects, and the project of working collectively with them gives me that big, electric ‘inside leaping up-and-down with possibility’ feeling. Their virtuosity, insight ,adventure,and poetry as a group is an inspiring cocktail, and I totally relish the thought of knitting together some new proper bad-ass material to rattle, entice and bewilder the bejesus out of people!
CMC Director Evonne Ferguson thanked PRS Foundation for supporting this tour and the commission of a new work by Brian Irvine:
The Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland is grateful to PRS Foundation’s Beyond Borders funding which will support Stone Drawn Circles’ tour of the UK and Ireland. All six members of Stone Drawn Circles are committed exponents of New Music by composers from Ireland, and each member is a dynamic figure in the contemporary music landscape. CMC is also excited to support the commission of a new work by composer Brian Irvine and to enable the performance of works by Irish composers Karen Power and Úna Monaghan. The tour will be a wonderful opportunity for audiences at home and abroad to engage with the dynamic, vibrant and diverse music of composers from Ireland.
The Stone Drawn Circles : In Formation tour will take place over 2024-25 in partnership with the venues and festivals including: New Music Dublin, Moving on Music (Belfast), Canolfan y Celfyddydau Aberystwyth/Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Cafe OTO (London).
Further details will be posted by CMC in the coming weeks.
The Contemporary Music Centre is supported by PRS Foundation’s Beyond Borders.
