Nick Roth Woodland Heights children's workshops; selection for ISCM Festival 2016

Mon 19 Oct 2015

Composer Nick Roth is conducting a series of children's interactive workshops. Related to his 2014 chamber orchestra composition Woodland Heights, this work, titled Little Woodland Heights, explores the world of forest canopy ecology and the function of music as 'translative epistemology', connecting our understanding of our world with the process of music creation. In Roth's words, "The weblike creational processes of investigation, experimentation and epiphany share many commonalities across the Sciences and the Arts; just as two hands work together to play the violin, these two complimentary aspects of human nature must form part of a single integrated response to the questions of our environment" (from the Woodland Heights programme note).

"The piece is an immersive educational environment that explores elements of ecology, botany, phyllotaxis and anthropology, employing sonic and visual information as translative epistemological devices for mapping scientific data into embodied languages intuitively accessible for primary-age students." – Nick Roth

This month Roth is conducting a number of these workshops with school students throughout October, as well as lectures about its scientific and artistic basis. The series will end with with a performance of the work by students from St. Brigid's Primary School in the gardens at IMMA, including the planting of a tree. The project was developed in association with the Arts Council, The Ark, the California Academy of Sciences and the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

These workshops take place just as the chamber orchestral piece of Woodland Heights has also been announced as the Irish section work at next year's ISCM World Music Days Festival in Tongyeong, South Korea. Each year, a work from each member organisation of the International Society for Contemporary Music is presented at this annual festival, selected from six national submissions. Roth's and the other five works were selected for presentation through a call for scores by the Association of Irish Composers. For more information on the festival, see www.worldmusicdays2016.kr.

Events:

Little Woodland Heights and Forest Canopy Ecology: Music as Translative Epistemology Lecture

  • 8 Oct, 11am, FUAIM Lecture Series, School of Music, University College Cork

Litle Woodland Heights workshop

  • 9 Oct, 12pm, O'Riada Hall, School of Music, University College Cork

Little Woodland Heights Lecture

  • 12 Oct, 5pm, Galway Music Academy (Gaelscoil Dara)

Translating Knowledge into Music Workshop

  • 17 Oct, 10.30am, The Ark, Temple Bar, Dublin

Little Woodland Heights II, Performance by St. Brigid's Primary School

  • 22 Oct, 1pm, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin