Sounds of Cuba, Contralto voices and 6 Moving Guitars: Louth Contemporary Music Society presents ‘We Sing for the Future’
From Wednesday 14 April to Sunday 18 April, Louth Contemporary Music Society’s festival of new music will stream seven free-to-view videos and performances from its website for the first time in the festival’s history.
Composer Sarah Hennies’ ‘Contralto’ is a one-hour work for video, strings, and percussion that exists in between the spaces of experimental music and documentary. The piece features a cast of transgender women speaking, singing, and performing vocal exercises accompanied by a dense and varied musical score that includes a variety of conventional and “non-musical” approaches to sound-making. 8pm, Wednesday 14 April
Guitarist and composer Fredrik Rasten and his ensemble present Rasten’s gently compelling ‘Six Moving Guitars’, a visually charming piece for video that looks at the unity of choreography and sound. 8pm, Thursday 15 April
The Harmonic Space Orchestra performs Marc Sabat’s ‘Gioseffo Zarlino’, an entrancing piece that unfolds cyclically, weaving voices into a fabric of strings, harp, and flute in a way that reworks sixteenth-century musical theory for our century and captures the spirit of restless innovation put forth by Gioseffo Zarlino and other renaissance theorists. 8pm, Friday 16 April
The world premiere of a new work, ‘Lenguas de Fuego’ (Tongues of Fire), promises fascination and utter excitement from the Irish composer, Kevin Volans, who is ever in vigorous pursuit of freedom within his compositions. This adventurous piece will be performed by a string quartet with flute and percussion. 5pm, Saturday 17 April
Elsewhere, pianist Michael McHale plays Cornelius Cardew’s protest song ‘We Sing for the Future’, a timely piece encouraging optimism for the young along with Cardew’s arrangement of the old Irish ballad ‘The Croppy Boy’.
English composer Laurence Crane responds with a piece offering hope in dark times – ‘Old Life was Rubbish’ – amongst other works, performed by Apartment House. Michael McHale and and flautist Fiona Kelly will also perform Crane’s fascinating ‘Gli Anni Prog’. 8pm, Saturday 17 April
Germany’s violin virtuoso, Carolin Widmann, performs in an arresting concert entitled ‘Another Prayer’, with the expressive musician sharing a mix of works from the past with more recent solo pieces including works by Hildegard von Bingen, George Benjamin, Hans Abrahamsen, Salvatore Sciarrino, J.S. Bach, Telemann and Julian Anderson’s ‘Another Prayer’. 5pm Sunday 18 April
The festival will then close on a Cuban-inspired note, in an evening dedicated to guitarist-composer Leo Brouwer and his Caribbean modernism. Guitarist Andrey Lebedev and cellist Cecilia Bignall will first play a selection of Brouwer’s music from London’s Cafe OTO, including the astonishing ‘Ciudad de las Columnas’.
Then, Drogheda guitarist Alec O’Leary and his guitar quartet will present the world premiere of Brouwer’s ‘Irish Landscape with Rain’, a piece initially written for last year’s cancelled festival. The guitar quartet will then perform Brouwer’s classic ‘Cuban Landscape with Rain’, before Alec O’Leary will enchant viewers with two solo works: ‘Cuban Landscape with Bells’ and the world premiere of ‘Dorian it is too late’, a new piece in memoriam of Oscar Wilde. 8pm Sunday 18 April
Festival Director Eamonn Quinn said: “We Sing for the Future presents composers from Ireland and other parts of the world, across a range of traditions and perspectives, united only by their music’s immediacy and urgency.
“These are voices we need to hear, and listen to, especially at such times. Performances are in the hands of musicians who can bring the music to vivid life, despite the circumstances, despite everything.”
Founded in Louth by Eamonn in 2006, the festival has become a world-class centre for contemporary classical music. Previously, LCMS has commissioned world-renowned composers, including Arvo Pärt, Sir John Tavener, Salvatore Sciarrino, David Lang and Terry Riley, and has featured performances from sought-after musicians such as Philip Glass and John Zorn
Elsewhere, LCMS has released twelve recordings, from the mesmerising ‘The Song of Songs’ featuring David Lang’s world premiere ‘just after song of songs’ with Trio Mediaeval and others, to Linda Catlin Smith’s ‘Meadow’ which was listed as a notable recording of 2020 by Alex Ross in the New Yorker
LCMS will be reacting to events, and to possibilities that might affect the festival, as they unfold
All concerts will be accessible to watch indefinitely after initial streaming on YouTube and LCMS’s website, except for Sarah Hennies’ ‘Contralto’, which will be available to watch for a limited time from 14 to 18 April on YouTube.
‘We Sing for the Future’ programme
Contralto
Composed by Sarah Hennies, “Contralto” stars Alexandra Brandon, Alyssa Green, Anna McCormick, Dreia Spies, Sarang Umarji, and Josie Zanfordino and was premiered at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY on November 30, 2017. The musical score was performed by Erik Carlson (violin), Wendy Richman (viola), T.J. Borden (cello), James Ilgenfritz (contrabass), Tim Feeney, Greg Stuart, and Ashley Tini (percussion). 8pm, Wednesday 14 April 2021.
Six Moving Guitars
Composed by Fredrik Rasten, and presented by his own ensemble. 8pm, Thursday 15 April 2021
Gioseffo Zarlino
Composed by Marc Sabat, and performed by the Harmonic Space Orchestra. 8pm, Friday 16 April 2021
Tongues of Fire
Composed by Kevin Volans, and performed by Esposito Quartet with flautist Silvija ŠÄerbaviÄiÅ«tÄ— and percussionist Brian Dungan. Conducted by Andrew Synnott. 5pm, Saturday 17 April 2021
Old Life was Rubbish
Composed by Laurence Crane and Cornelius Cardew and performed by Apartment House, pianist Michael McHale and flautist Fiona Kelly. 8pm, Saturday 17 April 2021
Another Prayer
Composed by Hildegard von Bingen, George Benjamin, Hans Abrahamsen, Salvatore Sciarrino, J.S. Bach , Telemann and Julian Anderson’s ‘Another Prayer’, and performed by violinist Carolin Widmann. 5pm, Sunday 18 April 2021.
Irish Landscape with Rain
Composed by Leo Brouwer, and featuring Andrey Lebedev, Cecilia Bignall, Alec O’Leary and his guitar quartet. 8pm, Sunday 18 April 2021.
Louth Contemporary Music Society’s ‘We Sing for the Future’ is funded by the Arts Council, financially supported by Create Louth and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
