Piano Counterpoint with Isabelle O'Connell

21 Nov 2015 - 8:30pm
Lutheran Hall, St. Finian's Church, Adelaide Rd, Dublin

Tickets €10/8 (students) + booking fee available from http://pianocounterpoint.eventbrite.ie/ 


The Association of Irish Composers is delighted to present a one-off concert with one of the country’s foremost interpreters of contemporary piano music, Isabelle O’Connell.


Programme:
Karen Power – loaded silence for piano and ice (new commission)
Dan Trueman – Nostalgic Synchronic Etudes for prepared digital piano
Linda Buckley – Fridur - piano and electronics (new commission)
Steve Reich – Piano Counterpoint for piano and prerecorded tracks


“A concert of new and recent works composed for solo piano and electronics, exploring the relationship between live performer and synthesized sounds. Each composer selected utilizes these possibilities in unique ways – from Karen Power’s field recordings of Arctic ice and the prepared digital piano of Dan Trueman’s Nostalgic Synchronic etudes. The program will include a newly commissioned work from composer Linda Buckley inspired by the Icelandic landscape. The program will also feature Piano Counterpoint - a solo reworking of Steve Reich's 1973 masterpiece Six Pianos. I have performed the six piano version extensively in the U.S. with my piano sextet Grand Band and will showcase this work in it’s more recent incarnation as a work for soloist and prerecorded tracks. Karen Power's work was commissioned with funds from the Arts Council Commissioning Award.”
– Isabelle O’Connell


Biography:
Recently described as “a luminary of New York's indie classical music scene” (Sequenza 21), Dublin-born pianist Isabelle O'Connell has developed an international career as soloist and chamber musician that has taken her across four continents. Since her Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2002 she has performed around the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, U.K. and Ireland, at venues such as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Symphony Space, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Art Institute and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival.

Isabelle is co-founder of Grand Band, New York’s six piano sextet, described by the New York Times as: "six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York's contemporary-classical scene”. Isabelle also performs with the Crash ensemble, joining them for concerts in North America, Australia and in Ireland. She has also performed with John Adams at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, Meredith Monk at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival and with the ConTempo and New Zealand String Quartets.

A dynamic interpreter and energetic advocate of music by living composers, Isabelle regularly commissions and premieres new works. Her debut solo album RESERVOIR was released to critical acclaim in 2010 and features solo piano music by nine contemporary Irish composers. Her recording of Kevin Volans' Concerto for Piano and Winds with the RTE NSO was released last year on the Lyric FM label. 

Isabelle’s performances have been broadcast on radio and television on both sides of the Atlantic, including WNYC, WQXR, WFMT Chicago, BBC3, RTE, TV3, and Lyric FM. Isabelle holds a B.A. from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin and a M.M. from the Manhattan School of Music. She is currently on the piano faculty at Bard College, NY.
For more info: www.isabelleoconnell.com