Music Current, a new electronic music festival, takes place this Thursday to Saturday, 7–9 April, in Dublin City.

Organised by Dublin Sound Lab, the contemporary music group founded by Fergal Dowling and Michael Quinn, the festival consists of three evening concerts at Smock Alley Theatre plus workshops and masterclasses at the Contemporary Music Centre during the day.

There is also the opportunity for composers taking part in the workshops to win a €2,500 commission to create a work for next year’s festival.

The opening concert on Thursday, OSCILLATOR, brings together three London-based musicians. Adrian Corker is a composer and runs his own record label; cellist Lucy Railton is director of the London Contemporary Music Festival; and violinist Mira Benjamin, who played with Quatuor Bozzini, describes herself as a ‘new music instigator’.

‘I think that’s how we in Dublin Sound Lab would like to see ourselves,’ Fergal Dowling told The Journal of Music, ‘as instigators.’ 

Later that evening, Jennifer Walshe will perform the Irish premiere of her recent work, THE TOTAL MOUNTAIN, a forty-minute piece in which the composer performs live alongside a video collage. ‘This is a real fun piece,’ Dowling says, ‘full of colour and action, but it’s also a critically engaged piece that wants to discuss the nature and value of musical material, how that material is relevant to a “post internet” concert audience.’

The second night features a new work by Dowling called SPOILS, written for Baroque chamber ensemble, computer, surround sound and video. It’s ‘technically quite complicated, but sonically visceral’, says Dowling.

We have been working on this project over the last year. The group is the typical trio sonata … and we really make effective use of the players’ Baroque sensibilities… There’s also a multi-channel ‘tape’ part that overlaps the live ensemble, and features the voice of Olwen Fouéré.

The closing concert, CURRENTS, features works that Dublin Sound Lab has programmed in collaboration with Gráinne Mulvey, as well as new works by the composers participating in the masterclasses and workshops. These works will only be selected during the course of the festival, and will be performed by Mira Benjamin and Lucy Railton. 

Before the final concert, on Saturday at 5pm, there will be a panel discussion titled ‘Who’s Afraid of Electronic Music?’ that features Ann Cleare, Gráinne Mulvey, Jennifer Walshe, Liam Cagney and Bernard Clarke. 

Dowling is hoping that Music Current can become a permanent feature of Irish musical life:

There is a huge amount of activity in electronic music throughout the island of Ireland, and while there have been some occasional attempts to showcase this work, there is no regular public expression of the level and quality of activity, in the Republic at least… We certainly hope that we can continue to run Music Current in the future and we are planning to do that. 

For full details and tickets, visit http://www.dublinsoundlab.ie/music_current/