Listening Bodies features a new premiere of Double Triptych by Robert Coleman and includes a new version of his installation ‘Speaking Tubes’. Robert will also perform in a number of works alongside members of Kirkos and Tonnta.

LISTENING BODIES

Tonnta and Kirkos join creative forces for the first time to assemble Listening Bodies, an epic, once-off takeover of Smock Alley Theatre featuring world-renowned composers in dialogue with unique local voices.

The culmination of a long-term collaboration between the two ensembles, this immersive experience builds from mentorship from internationally acclaimed artists, including German composer David Helbich and Irish performance artist Amanda Coogan.

You are invited to dive into this embodied four-hour exhibition of live and installation music given by 10 performers. Weave your way with sound throughout the entire labyrinth of Dublin’s oldest theatre

About the companies…

Tonnta is a performance company and vocal ensemble dedicated to new music. Lead by vocalist and composer Robbie Blake, Tonnta champions the interdisciplinary creation and performance of music.

Kirkos is a Dublin-based contemporary music ensemble focused on experimental music and multi-sensory experiences.

Created by: Michelle O’Rourke, Rob Coleman, Robbie Blake and Sebastian Adams. Featuring music by Andrew Hamilton, Eva-Maria Houben, Peter Ablinger and Jennifer Walshe and many more to be announced. Performed by Eileen Coyle, Emma Power, Jane Hackett, Michelle O’Rourke, Miriam Kaczor, Rob Coleman, Robbie Blake, Sebastian Adams, Yseult Cooper Stockdale and Tristan Caldwell.

With the kind support of Farmleigh House and The OPW - Office of Public Works, Kirkos Ensemble are proud to present Attrition ж A Musical Tribute to a Lost Generation. Set between Farmleigh’s breathtaking ballroom and conservatory on Saturday September 21st, the afternoon will present a new version of composer Sebastian Adams' Harry Patch alongside Cross, a new installation piece from composer Robert Coleman. The audience will be transported into a chaotic, dark yet captivating world designed to play with the listener’s perspective of time.

Taking Messiaen’s famous Quartet for the end of time as its model, and named after the longest surviving British combattant of the first World War, Harry Patch is a concert-length piece for horn, flute, cello and piano in 8 movements, originally written to be played in total darkness. While “angels and paradise exist” in Messiaen’s piece, such hope is absent in Adams’ musical tribute as it becomes a secular meditation on the futility of war and exists in a world where no one is listening.
Adams on his work, ‘…I disagree with Messaien: there’s a real message of hope in his music, but Harry Patch is saying that we’re a century later and nothing has changed.’

Bringing the theme of war into an Irish context, Robert Coleman’s Cross is an audiovisual work taking inspiration from a leading figure of the Irish rebellion, Thomas Ashe. The soundscape created in Cross features words and melodies from ‘Let me carry your cross for Ireland, Lord’, a song that Ashe wrote in 1916 while imprisoned in Brighton for his participation in the Easter Rising.

While Ashe was a militant, Patch became known for his famous line “war is not worth one life”, and as one man served in the war in France in 1917, the other passed away following a hunger strike and being violently force fed by the British authorities.

Both founding members and directors of Kirkos Ensemble, Sebastian and Robert aim to bring audiences emotional, profound and fun experiences. Going way beyond a typical classical music concert, the audience can expect a Saturday afternoon in beautiful surroundings, with a meditation on the ugliness of war, and moments of wildness, quiet, tranquility, aggression, silence and passion.

The members of Kirkos Ensemble performing the works will be Yseult Cooper Stockdale, Miriam Kaczor, Hannah Miller, Alexander Bernstein [Harry Patch], and Tom Roseingrave [Cross].

Saturday September 21st ж Farmleigh House
Doors 2.30pm ж Performance 3.00pm
Tickets €15 [regular] ж 4 for €50 [family]

Artwork by the brilliant Éna Brennan

Facebook event here

My installation How many sides do you see? (inside) will be presented at Dilated Impulses: A presentation for students of the Royal Conservatory of the Hague working with sound installations.

This evening is an experiment in regards to our ongoing curiosity for sound installations. Under the guidance of Justin Bennett we have gathered our listening desires and built them into visceral listening experiences.

Curious?
We would love to see you there.

Works by: Egor Ananko, Ferry Melleger, Cindy Giron, Soeria van den Wijngaard, Sheyda Dashti, Alexandru Pantazica, Sebastian Scholz, Robert Coleman, Domenic Jarlkaganova, Louis Braddock Clarke, Sól Ey, Anna-Lena Vogt and Simone Sacchi.

De Besturing
Saturnusstraat 89-91
2516 AG Den Haag

For more information see the Facebook event here

How many sides do you see? is a site specific performance work written for the James Turrell Celestial Vault. In this installation version of the work the 3 instruments are each reduced to a speaker, and the landscape of the Celestial Vault reduced to light from a projector.

Composition and design: Robert Coleman

Visuals: Renata Pekowska

Duration: 33 mins

The second day of the KC Composition Department Graduation Festival includes my new installation ‘How many side do you see? (inside) at the Korzo Club.

How many sides do you see? is a site specific performance work written for the James Turrell Celestial Vault. In this installation version of the work the 3 instruments are each reduced to a speaker, and the landscape of the Celestial Vault reduced to light from a projector.

Composition: Robert Coleman

Visuals: Renata Pekowska

Duration: 33 mins

Solid Study for viola and live electronics will be performed by Sebastian Adams at Korzo Theatre, Den Haag as part of the KC Composition Department Graduation Festival

Korzo Theatre and the Composition Department of the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague presents three days of music by the graduating composers!

The opening day of the festival is focused on music for various solo instruments. The pieces explore the possibilities offered by live electronics, the Indonesian krontjong cello, and even the performance space itself.

Orestes Willemen — Stage Fright [world premiére]
Patrick Ellis — Three Mostly Bowed Strings [world premiére]
Bethan Morgan-Williams — Solace [world premiére]
Robert Coleman — Solid Study [world premiére]

Under the guidance of Peter Ablinger artists and composers related to the Royal Conservatory and the College of Art in the Hague present an evening of installations at West Den Haag as part of the Transformations of the Audible Symposium.

Works by

Robert Coleman
Sóley Sigurjónsdóttir
Daniil Pilchen
Hendrik Hohlfeld
Marija Kudabaite
Ernests Vilsons
Tony Guarino
Guzmán Calzada
Soeria van den Wijngaard
Stefano Zucchini

More details on the Symposium available at the facebook event here

A concert with new works for quarter tone pianos with Charles Ives seminal piece as centrepiece.

Programme:

Carlos Castro van der Elst - Retrograded Sound Projection 6’
Daniil Pilchen - Hardly Accordant 8’
Maurizio Tedde - Geulincx towards the East 6’
Robert Coleman - Diamond Cutting 7’
Charles Ives - Three quarter-tone pieces

Pianists: Carlos Castro van der Elst and Rakhadin Yarmetov