United Kingdom Ink Still Wet VI: Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble (Aisling Agnew [flute], David McCann [cello], Daniel Browell [piano], Sarah Watts [clarinet], Ciaran McCabe [violin]) /Sinead Hayes (conductor). Harty Room, Queen’s University, Belfast, 27.1.2023. (RB)
Sungji Hong – Estavrosan
Sam Kane – Alatha’s Ascension
Amy Rooney – In Modo di Martha
Matthew Dowie – Follow the Thread
David McCann – Reflexion
Aidan MacLean – Growth
Gráinne Mulvey – Strange Attractor
Ian Wilson – Marianas
In this live performance the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble offered eight brand-new works, together with three works commissioned from younger composers at an early stage of their profession.
The opening piece on the programme was a piece entitled, Estavrosan by the distinguished Korean-American composer, Sungji Hong. The work takes its inspiration from a portray by Gerard David within the National Gallery in London exhibiting the crucifixion of Christ. The opening cluster chords on piano alternated with scales on the clarinet, highly effective sounds on the flute and eerie harmonics on the strings. Notwithstanding the modernist harmonies and textures, the work appeared tinged with jazz and South American musical influences. Powerful hammer strokes permeated the work, underlining the savagery of the crucifixion, culminating in surprising discords and fast figurations from the strings in direction of the tip of the piece. It was a extremely participating, fulfilling work and piece with which to open the live performance.
Sam Kane is a gifted violinist who received the Northern Ireland Young Musician of the Year competitors in 2017. He can be rising as a proficient younger composer and his piece Three Northern Landscapes received a Classic FM Platinum Performance Award. His piece, Alatha’s Ascension is impressed by Irish mythology: the eponymous Elatha of the title was described as a phenomenal prince of darkness. The work is scored for violin, cello and flute. This beautiful piece used standard harmonies and soulful Celtic melodies. In the opening part, fragments of melody emerged from blended harmonies within the strings. Each of the three devices took up the melodic line at varied factors and the accompanying textures have been properly different. Violinist Ciaran McCabe produced some spectacular double stopping and there was wonderful interaction between all three devices. This was a fantastically atmospheric piece which had an instantaneous enchantment.
Amy Rooney is a Northern Irish composer who collaborates recurrently with Hard Rain. Her In Modo di Martha is for solo flute and it was particularly written for Aisling Agnew. The work was impressed by a Walt Whitman poem which describes how a baby is moulded by their environment and experiences. Agnew’s efficiency of the work was extremely spectacular. She was always ingenious in the way in which she formed the more and more elaborate melodic traces and displayed a powerful vary of dynamics and tone colors. Having mentioned that, I used to be not fully satisfied by this piece, and it didn’t win me over in fairly the identical approach as among the different works on the programme.
Matthew Dowie is lively as a performer on acoustic and electrical guitars in a wide range of totally different types. The opening materials of Follow the Thread was written on the guitar. The rhythmic materials is impressed by Indian Classical music and the character of the piece is influenced by thrash metallic which is an excessive subgenre of heavy metallic music. The work was scored for flute, violin and cello. The angular opening theme was introduced in unison, and this was adopted up with a sequence of extremely ingenious variations. All three performers introduced rhythmic vitality and edginess to the work. Sinead Hayes did a superb job characterising the evolving materials and coaxing uncommon sonorities from the instrumentalists.
The resident cellist of the Hard Rain ensemble, David McCann, can be lively as a composer and he has written a number of works for solo cello. His new work for solo cello, Reflexion, is in regards to the sincere and generally painful technique of self-reflection. McCann’s efficiency was nothing lower than a virtuoso tour de drive. He appeared fully absorbed within the music and performed with huge freedom and aptitude. He conjured up extraordinary darkish sonorities from the decrease register of the instrument in direction of the tip of the piece.
Aidan MacLean is a younger composer who has written a number of profitable choral works. He additionally has a background in rock and jazz and received the Jazzlife Alliance’s Young Composer Award. His new work, Growth was described within the programme as that includes development throughout all musical parameters. It is scored for flute and cello and was properly balanced throughout each devices. Aisling Agnew and David McCann gave a dedicated efficiency, however I used to be not completely satisfied by this piece because it got here throughout as a bit of formal and educational.
The final two works on the programme moved into the realm of the avant-garde and featured two composers who collaborate recurrently with Hard Rain. Gráinne Mulvey’s Strange Attractor depicted the phenomenon the place random outcomes can result in discernible patterns. The work is scored for flute, bass clarinet and piano and all three instrumentalists did an impressive job conjuring up the extraordinary sounds and musical results demanded by Mulvey. Sinead Hayes stored a good grip on the reins and expertly moulded the musical materials. This was in a some ways a dramatic and compelling piece and I favored it very a lot.
The last work on the programme was Ian Wilson’s Marianas impressed by the Mariana Trench, the deepest a part of the ocean. All 5 instrumentalists participated on this work, though Sarah Watts on this event carried out on a contrabass clarinet. In the programme notes Wilson defined that he particularly needed to write down one thing for this instrument and he and Watts used it to create a unprecedented alien soundscape. The different instrumentalists depicted life on this setting utilizing uncommon percussion devices (together with seed pod shakers) whereas Daniel Browell performed instantly on the strings of the piano to create eerie results. Once once more this was a extremely evocative and imaginative piece.
Overall, the live performance featured impressed enjoying from the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble and it put some necessary new works on the map.
Robert Beattie