The experimental music group Kirkos have announced a three-day festival on 28–31 July to celebrate their tenth anniversary. The event will take place primarily at their Unit 44 venue in Dublin city.

The group was founded in 2012 by a number of students of the Royal Irish Academy of Music and directed by Sebastian Adams and Robert Coleman. They have since presented a range of adventurous work including the climate crisis inspired Biosphere, Listening Bodies, which was a collaboration with the vocal group Tonnta, and the multi-disciplinary Body Noise Work at Temple Bar Gallery.

The Kirkos festival opens on Thursday 28th with works by Karen Power and Coleman presented in Phoenix Park at 5pm. Coleman’s Decay is inherent in all things is an outdoor work for solo violin and live recording with playback system. Power will present work from her Human Nature series, which contains recordings of the living world with improvisations from musicians, also the focus of her 2020 album.

On Friday 29th, there will be the world premiere of Tape Melt by Kerry composer and sound artist Susan Geaney, a work inspired by the sound of a VHS tape coming under pressure in a VCR player and capturing the mixed emotions and trepidation of recent years.

Saturday begins at 6pm with a Kirkos ensemble concert featuring Particle by Jonathan Nangle for clarinet and electronics, Kevin O’Connell’s Horn Trio, Judith Shatin’s Zipper Music, which explores the sonic possibilities of a quartet of jacket zippers, and the world premiere of Éna Brennan’s Ode To Laura Palmer for full ensemble and video.

At 7pm on Saturday there will be a screening of Eimear Walshe’s film Land Cruiser, which depicts a car journey through the housing market looking for somewhere to have sex. The Longford artist’s recent film The Land Question was presented last year at the 39th EVA in Limerick, Ireland’s biennial of contemporary art.

The last event on Saturday will be a Fluxus Open Mic hour of experimental performance in which audiences and performers will be invited (in advance) to perform and the ‘vibe will be very informal and messy’. If you are interested in performing, more information is available by emailing sebastian [at] kirkosensemble.com.

On Sunday, the second Kirkos ensemble concert will feature the premiere of Leise Abbendämmerung by Jonathan Nangle for clarinet, cello and electric guitar; Andrew Hamilton’s Ritual of Abduction for violin, viola and cello; a Fluxus sequence devised by Kirkos; and Andy Ingamells’ Monument Piece.

The closing concert will feature a new commission by Robbie Blake, composer and director of Tonnta; the premiere of Áine Mallon’s Breathe; Frederic Rzewski’s 1970s work Coming Together for narrator and ensemble; and finally, a screening of Jennifer Walshe’s An Gléacht with improvised score.

Commenting on the festival, Kirkos director Adams said:

We are really happy to be celebrating ten years of Kirkos in our new home at Unit 44, which is at the core of our vision for the future of Kirkos. We’ve programmed the anniversary to look forward as well as back, with new work from some of the outstanding young artists we’ve been lucky to get to know in recent years and also with music devised and improvised by the ensemble. We’re also presenting it in this informal way (everything will be free and laid back), hoping to make this radical new work accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

All events are free of charge, but booking is recommended. Booking details will be announced closer to the event. 

Ahead of the Kirkos festival, composer David Bremner’s new opera Slow Recognition will also be performed at Unit 44 on 13–16 July. See more information here.

For further details on Kirkos, visit www.kirkosensemble.com.