Last year saw the rise of two new bodies concerned with contemporary music. The Crash Ensemble is dedicated, among other things, to carving a new path in the realm of multi-media work, and Composers' Ink, is concerned with furthering the cause and careers of the five composers who banded together to form it.
Today and tomorrow, with funding from the Arts Council, the two organisations are involved in promoting a weekend of new music. Between them, the outward-looking Crash and the very tightly-focused Composers' Ink, have come up with four concerts of unusual national and international hue.
The weekend's three premieres give an idea of the breadth on offer.
Visiting flautist Camilla Hoitenga will give the first performance of Couleurs de Vent by the leading Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who now lives in Paris where she is associated with IRCAM and the use of computers in composition. Hoitenga also premieres Raymond Deane's Mutatis Mutandis, written in 1979, but only now receiving a public airing. And the Crash Ensemble perform the new Network Slammer by Zack Browning, an American composer who seems to try and reflect the energy of his pieces in the titles he chooses for them.
The weekend opens with works by Fergus Johnston, Raymond Deane and Roger Doyle at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre at 1.15 p.m. today. The Crash Ensemble play Roger Doyle, Benjamin Dwyer, Raymond Deane, Donnacha Dennehy, Fergus Johnston and John Cage at Project @ The Mint tonight. The Hugh Lane at noon tomorrow is the venue for works by Deane, Johnston, Dwyer, Dennehy and Doyle, and the final concert by Crash features Stockhausen, Zack Browning, Julia Wolfe, James Dillon, Kaija Saariaho, Steve Reich and John Cage. Admission to both lunchtime programmes is free.
