Ensemble Modern premiere new work by David Fennessy

Ensemble Modern is celebrating their 30th anniversary with two concerts which feature a series of premieres. The first concert took place on 16th March 2010 with commissioned works by Anthony Cheung, Orm Finnendahl, Saed Haddad and Miroslav Srnka. This weekend Saturday (15th of January 2011), Ensemble Modern will premiere six more pieces at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, conducted by Franck Ollu. This concerts includes a new “birthday” commission by Glasgow based Irish composer David Fennessy entitled La Rejouissance, La Paix. The programme also contains commissioned pieces by Anthony Cheung, Vassos Nicolaou, Wolfgang Rihm, Johannes Schöllhorn and Miroslav Srnka. The new works focus especially on the dialogue between solo performance and ensemble work.

In the programme note for La Rejouissance, La Paix, David Fennessy explains the inspiration behind this new work for Ensemble Modern.

“Two separate but similar ‘real life’ incidents provided the inspiration for the second part of this piece, La Paix. The first came during a concert I was at by a well known contemporary music ensemble when all of a sudden, outside the auditorium, completely oblivious to what was going on inside, a massive fireworks display exploded into life. The second concerned a concert I myself was performing in of the music of Alvin Lucier (itself extremely quiet, where almost nothing happens) and again, for some reason, a brief fireworks display came and went outside the walls of the concert hall. ………

What was common to both experiences was that there was something mysterious going on outside, something unseen, a party at which we, the audience, became unintended guests. The first part of my piece La Rejouissance uses material borrowed from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. Actually, it is no more than a climactic cadence from the overture but it is stretched out by the ensemble onstage and elaborated upon in an extrovert and solistic manner by the unseen, offstage ensemble.”

For those who will not make it to Frankfurt on Saturday, Irish audiences have the exciting opportunity of hearing again David Fennessy’s Bodies, (an RTÉ NSO commission from February 2010) in the RTÉ NSO’s Horizons series at the National Concert Hall on Tuesday 18th of January at 1:05. These lunchtime performances of contemporary music are free. David Fennessy will also join CMC’s Director, Evonne Ferguson for Composers in Conversation, a new event in the RTE NSO’s Horizons series which takes place at 12:30pm in the John Field Room,  just before the performance in the main auditorium.

For further information visit http://www.rte.ie/performinggroups/2011/0118/horizons2011fennessy.html