Kilkenny Arts Festival 2025: Sam Perkin 'The More Beautiful World'

Performed by Ciarán Hinds, Sharon Carty and The Fews Ensemble.

“The More Beautiful World” (2022-24). For Chamber Ensemble & Spoken Word.

From the Composer:

This setting of striking texts from ‘The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible’ by Charles Eisenstein is a culmination of two years of work. My intention was to create a numinous score structured with both risk and integrity, aiming to distill the essence of this remarkable writing. What can we as individuals do to make the world a better place? Eisenstein’s writing invites us to embrace a different understanding of cause and effect, showing how our small, personal choices bear unsuspected transformational power. Numinous, alluring and hypnotic, ‘The More Beautiful World’ (For Chamber Ensemble & Spoken Word) aims to serve as an empowering antidote to the cynicism, frustration, paralysis, and overwhelm so many of us are feeling.

-  Sam Perkin

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Perkin is no stranger to Kilkenny Arts Festival, with performances of his music by Irish Chamber Orchestra, Finghin Collins and as one of the six composers for Róisín Reimagined with Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh in recent years.

Commissioned by the Festival especially for The Fews Ensemble and Ciarán Hinds, this new work is a striking setting of text from an inspirational book by the American activist Charles Eisenstein, that asks; what, in a time of social and ecological crisis can we do to make the world a better place. Straddling classical and experimental music, Perkin’s numinous score distils the essence of Eisenstein’s remarkable book.

Ciarán Hinds returns to Kilkenny Arts Festival for a third time having wowed audiences in 2019 in collaboration with The Fews Ensemble for two memorable performances of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, and alongside the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Iarla Ó Lionáird in Sweeney by Neil Martin– a song cycle based on Seamus Heaney’s Sweeney Astray in 2023.

With Stage Direction from Tom Creed, The More Beautiful World also features acclaimed Irish Mezzo-Soprano Sharon Carty- with a stellar career in opera and recital, Sharon is also no stranger to Kilkenny audiences, most recently performing the premiere of Deirdre Gribbin's song-cycle, The Stones of Life with the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

Duration: 50 minutes.

Creative Team

The More Beautiful World
Composer: Sam Perkin
Stage Director: Tom Creed
Actor: Ciarán Hinds
Mezzo-Soprano: Sharon Carty
The Few Ensemble, with leader Joanne Quigley McParland

Tickets

€30 / €28 / €25 / €23. Booking at Kilkenny Arts Festival.