MUSIC CURRENT 2020 - Sensate Focus

MUSIC CURRENT 2020 - Sensate Focus

Wednesday, 15 April 2020, 8.00pm

Dublin Sound Lab presents

MUSIC CURRENT 2020

CONTEMPORARY ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL

PROJECT ARTS CENTRE :: 14–18 April, 2020 :: projectartscentre.ie

A five-day festival of new music:

“The highly-specialised new music festival, Music Current, presented what was the new music performance of the year for me, Steven Takasugi’s hour-long, often comic Sideshow, in a mesmerising performance by Ensemble Tzara.” - Michael Dervan, The Irish Times

Ireland’s most ambitious and most adventurous contemporary music festival MUSIC CURRENT moves into a new home at Project Arts Centre for 2020. With 7 concerts over 5 days, as well as participation workshops, this year’s line-up showcases some of the most fearless innovators contemporary music today. The 2020 programme is entirely made up of Irish premieres and sees many artists, such as Alexander Schubert and Decoder Ensemble from Germany; Kazakh violinist Aisha Orazbayeva; and Australian pianist Zubin Kanga, who perform in Ireland for the very first time. This annual contemporary music festival stages the best of new Irish and international contemporary electronic music. Growing to a five-day festival this year, with concerts, panel discussions, composer talks, and a music commission, this unique event runs from 14–18 April.

MUSIC CURRENT has a reputation for presenting music that is at once both fun and challenging, and this year the programme includes virtuosic sonic ‘pyrotechnics’ for flute and electronics, performances with augmented instruments and electronic sensors, interactive video, and music generated by the public via the internet during live performances. The festival is a showcase of the “newest of the new” music from Ireland and worldwide.

Festival Director Fergal Dowling commenting on this year’s programme says: “I am excited to bring Music Current Festival, now in its fifth year, to a new home at the Project Arts Centre. The festival keeps growing and this year we have seven concerts over five days, as well as two participation workshops. As usual, we have a strong international presence – with artists from Germany, Austria, France, England, Italy, Scotland, Australia, and Kazakhstan – as well as some of the most striking and original voices in Irish music, like Scott McLaughlin, Piaras Hoban and our commissioned composer Seán O’Dálaigh.”

COMING UP AT MUSIC CURRENT 2020:
Decoder Ensemble is one of the most innovative and fearless young groups in contemporary music. For MUSIC CURRENT 2020 they present a programme including works by ensemble founder, and new music iconoclast, Alexander Schubert. Distinguished by their high-energy, irreverent performances and their enthusiastic embracement of multimedia and electronic forces in their shows, Decoder Ensemble make each concert programme a choreography of music, light, video, electronic sound and live performance. In their first visit to Ireland the group presents works by ensemble composers Alexander Schubert and Andrej Koroliov, as well as multimedia works by Michael Beil and Malte Giesen. Not to be missed!

Kazakhstani violinist Aisha Orazbayeva presents her acclaimed reimagining of G.P. Telemann's Violin Fantasias, 16 April, rendered here in a shockingly fresh contemporary style through use of modern extended violin techniques.Renowned for her daring interpretations of contemporary music and radical approaches to early repertoire, Aisha has released three solo albums with music ranging from her own compositions to Telemann and Sciarrino. She has performed internationally, including at Carnegie Hall, HAU2 Berlin and Tokyo's SuperDeluxe. Orazbayeva's performances of Telemann's Violin Fantasias range from personal and stylistic interpretations to versions marked by the distortion and fragmentation of the material. Aisha Orazbayeva’s programme of Telemann’s Violin Fantasias makes her programme the earliest works performed in Music Current by about 265 years!

Also on 16 April is Karlheinz Essl’s Gold.Berg.Werk, a set of electronic variations on Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations (1741), performed by pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett with the composer performing live electronics.The Goldberg Variations form a cornerstone of keyboard repertoire, yet we rarely question the mode of presentation for this piece. Essl offers a refreshing glimpse of a new performance practice through his unusual take on this work. Essl’s re-invention was originally envisioned as a performance environment for string trio, but now this new version for piano and live electronics will be heard in Ireland for the first time. Pestova Bennett is an innovative performer and educator. Described as "a powerhouse of contemporary keyboard repertoire" (Tempo), "stunning" (Wales Arts Review), "ravishing" (Pizzicato) and "remarkably sensuous" (New Zealand Herald), she has earned a reputation as a leading interpreter of uncompromising repertoire and masterworks from the past. Essl, is renowned for his many ‘real-time’ compositions and for his work in generative music. He is equally well known as a computer musician and for his development of software environments for algorithmic composition – notably, his Real Time Composition Library (RTC-lib) for Max/MSP/Jitter. As well as being a highly prolific composer, Essl also regularly acts as a performer and improviser.

Scottish flautist Richard Craig presents a new programme, FOUR FFF, featuring only most recent works, commissions and premiers, all written purposefully for him. Richard is joined by French composer/perform and computer music wizard, Gilbert Nouno in this exploration of new music from Ireland, England, France, and Argentina that engages all the technical resources of the performer, the instrument, and digital media. This concert includes Piaras Hoban’s new work developed during extended collaborations with Richard for ‘feedback flute’. Hoban’s new work uses acoustic feedback to reinforce harmonic overtones inside the flute to create a glistening wall of sound.

Austrian new music pioneers, Schallfeld Ensemble, are regular guests at major international music festivals (Wien Modern, Implus, Darmstadt, Poznan, EMA), and now at Music Current they bring their trade make innovative concert stagings and repertoire to Dublin for the first time, presenting a programme with long-time collaborator Marko Ciciliani, which overtly references game culture. All the works in this programme integrate competitive and interactive elements from computer games into the fabric of the compositions and whole concert setting. Four members of the ensemble will perform together with composer Marko Ciciliani.

Recipient of the Music Current 2019 Commission, Kerry composer Seán O'Dálaigh returns to Music Current Festival for the premiere of his new work with Richard Craig in the festival’s annual CURRENTS event. Seán's music is deeply rooted in locality, installation practice, engagement with the performance space and social context. In this new work Seán draws together elements of multi-media and collaborative practice to unveil a deeply resonant transcendent work.

WIKI-PIANO is another Irish premiere this time by Australian pianist and new music adventurer Zubin Kanga who performs in Dublin for the first time. A champion of collaboration and new music commissioning, Zubin performs a highly personal programme entirely of works he personally commissioned for piano and electronics. As well as being known for his highly idiosyncratic performances, Kanga is also a composer, improviser and technologist. His work in recent years has focused on new models of interaction between a live musician and new technologies, using film, AI, motion capture, 3D modelling, animation and virtual reality. Zubin has developed a practice based around commissioning and collaboration, and here he premiers a new work, Fake, for piano and score-following computer by composer and festival Director Fergal Dowling.

Dowling also says: “Our visiting artists and composers are amongst the most active and innovative contemporary musicians today, like: Decoder Ensemble and our featured composer Alexander Schubert, who create truly theatrical multimedia performances; or Karlheinz Essl, Xenia Pestova Bennett, and Aisha Orazbayeva, who are conjure entirely fresh reinventions from Baroque music masterworks for piano, violin and electronics; or Richard Craig’s virtuosic pyrotechnics for flute and electronics; or Schallfeld Ensemble who augment their instrumental palette with sensors, visuals and electronic devices; or Zubin Kanga who interacts with video and publicly generated music during his performances – they are all highly inventive music performers. Together with our invited and commissioned Irish composers, they make Music Current Festival a showcase of the most current, most fun, most accomplished and most challenging music.”

PARTICIPATE:
This year MUSIC CURRENT has two participation strands for professional musicians, composers and music technologists.

SPATIAL MUSIC WORKSHOP:
The first is a practical hands-on Spatial Music Workshop on Tuesday 14 April for composers who would like to learn about the process of realising fixed-media works on multichannel loudspeaker arrays. The workshop will be led by Enda Bates (TCD and Spatial Music Collective) and will be hosted at Project Arts Centre. The workshop is aimed at any electronic music composer who produces fixed-media works, and who would like to learn about the process of realising fixed media works on multichannel loudspeaker arrays.

COLLABORATIVE COMPOSITION WORKSHOP:
Musicians, composers and music technologists can also take part in a 4-day-long Collaborative Composition Workshop. Composers, musicians, instrumentalists, singers and music technologists are invited to submit ideas for new music works to be developed during the festival. The festival is especially interested in proposals which are clear in concept but which are not yet fully realised, and which would benefit from practice-based collaborative development to complete and perform the work.

As many as ten participants will be selected to collaborate in a series of composition workshops and to develop and realise their works in concert at Project Arts Centre, Saturday 18 April, 2020. Submissions can include devised works, or concepts for collaborative composition and performance, for any combination of flute, synthesiser, fixed-media, multichannel loudspeaker system, live electronics, computer, synthesiser, midi controllers, or any other instrumental or vocal forces that the participant can supply. Participants should be able to realise their own works, or to be able to source suitable collaborative musicians and partners from amongst the workshop participants to help perform or realise their work.

Composers, musicians, instrumentalists, singers or music technologists of any age or nationality, with experience or interest in electronic composition and performance may apply. Composition Workshop participants must be available to attend at Music Current Festival, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, from 15–18 April 2020. Application is free, but selected participants will pay a fee of €100. All participants will be able to attend all festival concerts and events. At least one of the participants will be invited to work with Dublin Sound Lab as an Associate Artist and will be offered a commission of €2,500 to develop a new work for Music Current Festival 2021.

Application deadline, 6 March 2020
Notification of acceptance, 20 March 2020
Participation fee deadline, 3 April 2020

Within the Composition Workshop, Alexander Schubert will present a talk on his recent work. One of the most engaging composers working in music today, Schubert infuses his works with his own boundless energy. His compositions are at once inventive, thought provoking, radical, witty and mesmerising. While often displaying the outward brashness of popular culture, his works are earnestly engaged with the relevance of music material, the role of music in society, and the role of technology in music. In this talk, on Wednesday 15 April, he presents on some of his recent compositions and discusses the influences for his on-going practice. This event is open only to composers and musicians participating in Spatial Music Workshop or the Collaborative Composition Workshop.

COMPOSER / PERFORMER? PANEL DISCUSSION is an open public panel discussion, featuring invited guest panellists – Karlheinz Essl, Xenia Pestova Bennett, Richard Craig, Piaras Hoban and Seán O'Dálaigh – who discuss the relationship between composer and performer, especially in the cases where these two roles are occupied by the same individual. Each of the panellists has made composer-performer collaboration a central theme of their respective professional practices and each has approached the relationship a unique way. Here they share their thoughts on how composer/performer collaboration has become a creative force in their own musical work.

The Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland's archive and resource centre for new music will host the festival panel discussion. The discussion will be moderated by Evonne Ferguson, Director of CMC, and will be open and accessible to public participation, and contributions are welcome from the audience too. This public event is free to attend and all are welcome. Thursday 16 April at 6pm.

Music Current is produced in collaboration with the Contemporary Music Centre and supported by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Dublin City Council, with the friendly support of Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, and Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne. MUSIC CURRENT is now established in its fifth year as a featured in the Irish contemporary music calendar and on the international scene. The festival offers a unique concentrated showcase for audiences and a high-profile platform for the newest music in Ireland.

LISTING INFORMATION:

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC CENTRE, 19 Fishamble Street, Temple Bar, Dublin

Composer Talk with Alexander Schubert: Wednesday 15 April | 2pm | Free

Composer/Performer Panel Discussion: Thursday 16 April | 6pm | Free

PROJECT ARTS CENTRE, East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

SENSATE FOCUS: Wednesday 15 April | 8pm | € tbc

TELEMANN EXTENDED: Thursday 16 April | 7pm | € tbc

GOLD.BERG.WERK: Thursday 16 April | 8pm | € tbc

FOUR FFFF: Friday 17 April | 7pm | € tbc

CHEMICAL ETUDES: Friday 17 April | 8pm | € tbc

CURRENTS: Saturday 18 April | 7pm | € tbc

WIKI PIANO: Saturday 18 April | 8pm | € tbc

Box Office / Tel: +353 1 8819 613 / projectartscentre.ie

Further info at: http://www.musiccurrent.ie

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TWITTER: @DublinSoundLab

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Published by Conleth Teevan on 28 January 2020

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