€10/€8 (IGS members)
The Association of Irish Composers is excited to announce this concert of guitar music by Irish composers in the beautiful setting of the Irish Georgian Society’s Sth William St building. Composer/performer/researcher Benjamin Dwyer has specially selected a programme of music for guitar by Irish composers, including Paul Hayes, Jerome de Bromhead, David Fennessy, Peter Moran, Judith Ring, Jennifer Walshe and himself.
This concert is part of the Irish Composers on Irish Music series, which sees members bring their unique insights as composers and academics to a performance programme.
Irish Composers on Irish Music is supported by the Arts Council. The Association of Irish Composers is supported by IMRO.
Programme:
Paul Hayes: Non in Fretta (1987)
Paul Hayes: Thirteen Little Things that Touch the Heart (1984)
Paul Hayes: Pre-Prelude for Morton Feldman (1926-1987) (1987)
Paul Hayes: Sonata a niente (1990)
INTERVAL
Jerome de Bromhead: Gemini (1970)
David Fennessy: Security Blanket (2005)
INTERVAL
Peter Moran/Judith Ring: Anois 's Arís (2009) (amplified guitar & tape)
Benjamin Dwyer: Quasimprovisation No. 1 (2015) (amplified guitar)
Jennifer Walsh: This is Why People O.D. on Pills (2004) (amplified guitar)
Biography:
As a composer, guitarist and researcher, Benjamin Dwyer's creative and critical work extends from a broad base in performance and artistic practice.
Dwyer's compositions are regularly performed internationally and he has been the featured composer at the Musica Nova Festival (São Paulo), the Bienal de Riberão Preto (Brazil), the National Concert Hall's Composers' Choice, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's Horizons series and MUSIC21 (Dublin). Recent major works include Umbilical, a re-working of the Oedipus myth composed for Maya Homburger, Barry Guy and David Adams, which received its UK première in 2013 and which will be released on Diatribe Records in 2015. jouissance… (for shakuhachi) was premièred at the L´Auditori Concert Hall in Barcelona in 2013 during the European Shakuhachi Festival. A newly commissioned work written for violist Garth Knox entitled imagines obesae et aspectui ingratae will be premièred in 2015 at the River Barrow Festival. A new major work composed in collaboration with American-Irish poet Kimberly Campanello, SacrumProfanum (for live musicians, tape, video installation and exhibited artworks) will be premièred and exhibited in June 2015 at the Crescent Arts Centre (Belfast). The Fidelio Trio will première a new piano trio at Kings Place (London) in October 2015. Recent CD recordings include Twelve Études (Gamelan Records, 2008), Irish Guitar Works (El Cortijo, 2012), Scenes from Crow (Diatribe Records, 2014) and New Music: New Ireland II (CMC, 2015).
Dwyer has given concerts worldwide and has appeared as soloist with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Germany), the Santos Symphony Orchestra (Brazil), VOX21, the Vogler String Quartet (Germany) and the Callino String Quartet (UK). Most recently he was the featured guitarist in Barry Guy’s Blue Shroud Band, which headed the bill at the Krakow Autumn Jazz Festival in 2014.
Dwyer’s research specialties include Ligeti, Britten, Irish art music and ‘Practice as Research’. Publications include Constellations, the Life and Work of John Buckley (Carysfort Press, 2011) and Different Voices: Irish Music and Music in Ireland (Wolke-Verlag, 2014). His Britten and the Guitar: Perspectives in Performance and Interpretation (Carysfort Press) will be published in 2015. Book chapters include 'Transformational Ostinati in György Ligeti's Sonatas for Solo Cello and Solo Viola' in György Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Music (Boydell & Brewer, 2011) and ‘Teleology or Transcendence? Perspectives on Ligeti’s Collusion with Automatism’, which will appear in a new publication entitled Ligeti’s Musical Kaleidoscopes: Essays and Analyses (University of Rochester Press, 2015).
Dwyer is an elected member of Aosdána and an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London (ARAM). He earned a PhD in Composition from Queen's University (Belfast), and is Professor of Music at Middlesex University, London.