Dublin’s Crash Ensemble will host a fundraiser event, titled Play as You Like at the Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin, on Thursday, 7 February. The event is a peculiar take on the group, with performances from individual performers and production crew, in many cases revealing a side to them rarely seen in the context of Crash Ensemble.

Adrian Hart, the ensemble’s Production Manager, will perform a solo fiddle set. Aside from production and engineering work, Hart is the fiddle player with a number of groups, including Yurodny, I Draw Slow and Prison Love.

The singer and songwriter Valerie Francis, who works as a sound engineer with Crash Ensemble, will perform some of her own material. Francis’s 2009 album Slow Dynamo was nominated for the Choice Music Prize and was named Album of the Year by the Irish Independent. The video for ‘Punches’, directed by Eoghan Kidney was famously singled out for praise by Kanye West at the time.

Kate Ellis, Crash Ensemble’s cellist and co-Artistic Director, will perform with the percussionist Sean Carpio, not as a cello and drums duo, but with both musicians playing an instrument invented by the composer George Higgs, named ‘Door’. The instrument, which is about as tall as a person and can roll about on wheels, is just back from New York where it was presented at the performing arts showcase APAP.

Better known as the ensemble’s double bass player, Malachy Robinson will take to the stage with a slightly smaller instrument, a ukelele. Composer Enda Bates will perform some of his music for solo guitar, and Crash’s clarinettist Deirdre O’Leary will put down her clarinet to sing. The night will be completed with a DJ set from Keith Fennell of the Contemporary Music Centre.

Doors are at 7pm with the performance starting at 8pm. There is no set ticket price, with audience members encouraged to pay as they like.

crashensemble.com