'A direct line back to my beginnings as a musician': Ergodos to Release New Andrew Hamilton Solo Album

The cover of Andrew Hamilton’s new album ‘Joy’

'A direct line back to my beginnings as a musician': Ergodos to Release New Andrew Hamilton Solo Album

Video for track 'May' released ahead of full album release in June.

The Ergodos label has announced that it will release a new solo album by composer Andrew Hamilton in June. It is Hamilton’s debut album as a soloist performing his own material. Joy features the composer playing violin and singing on all six tracks.

Commenting on the album, Hamilton said:

The pieces on this album chart a direct line back to my beginnings as a musician – I was an annoying child who was always singing and at seven I started learning the violin. Writing fragments down, singing along with them was a natural consequence and I retreated into this little world of melodies I had created.

He says he found his way back to this type of ‘beginner’s mind’ for these new works:

Performing my own works gave me the space to really experiment with material and form. I couldn’t have written my larger scale works without being able to retreat back into remembering what made me a musician in the first place – the sheer joy of non-thinking, being in the midst of sound and patterns – the things that bind together musicians of any tradition across our planet. These pieces are my most direct and personal – they deal with love, art, the horrors of learning solfège, breaking voices, and memory.

Hamilton, from Dublin, has had his work performed at festivals including Gaudeamus, SPOR in Denmark, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the MATA Festival in New York and Tectonics. In 2018 his first album, Music for People, was released on the NMC label. He teaches composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. 

Ahead of the release, Ergodos has published a video to accompany the track ‘May’ made by Irish choreographer Emma Martin. ‘This song feels like a prayer or meditation,’ says Martin. ‘I wanted to reflect that in the close observance of a child in her own thoughts, just singing along. I shot it with my 9-year-old daughter Rudi one day in late April with everything in lockdown apart from nature in spring.’

Joy by Andrew Hamilton will be available for streaming and download on 8 June. For more, visit https://ergodos.ie/shop/releases/joy/

 

Published on 26 May 2020

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