In Beautiful May (2008)

O.A.I.R.

Everything Is Ridiculous

live recording from Gen X Festival April 24th 2022, Walt Disney Hall, LA
Voice: Catherine Brookman
Alarm Will Sound
Conductor: Alan Pierson

Recorded and mastered by Daniel Neumann

text: 
1. Art is Art. Everything else is everything else.
2. Art-as-Art. Art from Art. Art on Art. Art of Art. Art for Art. Art beyond Art. Artless artifice.
13. Forms into uniform and formlessness. Style as recurrence.
14. Light as reappearance,dullness. Color as black, empty.
16. Verticality and horizontality, rectilineartity, parallelsim, stasis.
17. Outlines, monotones, blankness, quiescence, premeditation.
19. Matter only to the mind.
20. The strictest formula for the freest artistic freedom.
21. The easiest routine to the difficulty.
22. The most common mean to the most common end.
23. The extremely impersonal way for the truly personal.
24. The completest control for the purest spontaneity.
25. The most universal path to the most unique. And vice-versa.

From “25 Lines of Words on Art Statement” by Ad Reinhardt (permission to use text kindly granted by the Reinhardt estate)

music for people who like art (filmed/recorded at Walt Disney Hall, courtesy of LA Phil)

live recording of premiere, Limerick City Art Gallery, 11/10/18

Contempo String Quartet

f (2018)

live recording, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre 2/10/21

Donald Grant- violin/voice

Joseph Reiser- sound engineer

Manchester Collective

In Beautiful May (2008)- Donald Grant violin/voice

performed by Musarc with
Cara Houghton (flute), Rowan Jones (clarinet), Michelle Hromin (bass clarinet), Andrew Hamilton (violin), Andrew Liddell (viola), Rebecca Burden (cello), Steve Potter (piano).
conducted by Jack Sheen

recorded 2022

PRODUCT#1    Musarc/Sheen

Neue Vocalsolisten

“Das Kunstwerk in diesem Sinne, als unmittelbarer Lebensakt, ist somit die vollständige Versöhnung der Wissenschaft mit dem Leben, der Siegeskranz, den die besiegte, durch ihre Vesiegung erlöste, dem freudig von ihr erkannten Sieger huldigend darreicht.”
Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft -Richard Wagner

“The Art-work, thus conceived as an immediate vital act, is therewith the perfect reconcilement of Science with Life, the laurel-wreath which the vanquished, redeemed by her defeat, reaches in joyous homage to her acknowledged victor.”
The Art-Work of the Future -Richard Wagner

commissioned by Akademie Schloss Solitude
first performance by Neue Vocalsolisten, Theaterhaus Stuttgart 17.7.10

music for people who like the future

the heavens

Rivers in Ireland

O'ROURKE

Full  track: https://crashensemble.bandcamp.com/album/friendly-piece


Friendly Piece: Excerpt

National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland conducted by Hannu Lintu

The True Truths (2012)

Original texts from Dúchas collection            https://www.duchas.ie/en

English translations

All three singers:

"This is the place of your resurrection"

Soprano 1:

Once upon a time a body of soldiers launched a furious raid on Baile Bhuirne and they were busily plundering about them until Saint Gobnait stopped them. She had bees and she sent them after the army. She made soldiers of the bees and they launched a wholesale slaughter on the plunderers.

Informant: Micheál Ó Loingsigh Collector: Seán Ó Cróinín
Location: Ballyvourney, Co. Cork, 1928


Soprano 2:

Once upon a time thieves came to steal the cattle of Baile Bhuirne. The thieves found the animals, gathered them together and were ready to drive them westwards. When Gobnait found out, she sent the bees in pursuit of the thieves. The bees attacked them. Injured and scarred the thieves escaped without so much as a single cow. Every cow and calf was brought back to their rightful owners.

Gaelscoil Uí Ríordáin's Art Project 

Mezzo-soprano:
Finín Ó Donnchadha of the Glen and his soldiers went to Baile Bhuirne once on a cattle raid. They reached Baile Bhuirne in the dead of night and immediately started gathering all the animals. It so happened that the locals woke up and they countered the raiders. Finín and his men were too strong for them so they took the animals with them westwards towards the Glen.
The people of Baile Bhuirne put their heads together to find a solution and finally they decided to ask Saint Gobnait to rescue them because at that time she was creating wondrous things with the blessed bees.
Their chief was a pagan and he didn’t want to seek her help but he had no choice. Saint Gobnait promised to return their animals to them on condition that he became a Catholic, which he did. Saint Gobnait went westwards in pursuit of the raiders, barefoot with the beehive in her hand. She caught up with them on the border of the two counties, she shook the beehive in the air and the bees came out. She made soldiers of them. There was a terrible fight between the two groups and in the end the raiders were chased away.
The bees then went back into the beehive and Saint Gobnait went back to Baile Bhuirne with the plunder.

Informant: Pádruig Ó hÉaluigh
Location: Cluain Chaoin, Gleann Fleisce, Cill Airne, Co Chiarraí

Íocón Beiche  (Bee Icon)  - workshop recording

REGRETS (from Dancehall by Emma Martin, music /lyrics by Andrew Hamilton)

c (2016). RTE National Symphony of Orchestra of Ireland conducted by Gavin Maloney

"In a world become blind, I beat the drum of the Deathless."  Ariyapariyesana Sutta

commissioned and performed by the Ives Ensemble

music for roger c

music for roger casement

Chamber Choir Ireland conducted by Paul Hiiler.  Recorded during the Lunalia Festival in Mechelen May 2018 by Radio Klara

Texts (from speeches by Thomas Bernard):

Movement I:
“ I don’t want to tell a story; I don’t want to sing; I don’t want to preach”.

Movement II:
“The problem is to get work done...it is a question of one’s spiritual constitution and one’s spiritual concentration, of isolation and distance...of monotony...of utopia...of idiocy...”

Movement III:
“Everything is ridiculous when one thinks of death”.

music for thomas bernhard

performed by Tanglewood Music Fellows August 2019

g = piano quartet (for agnes martin)

In airde sna spéartha bhí lampa mór buí ar a
dtugtaí an ghrian ag sileadh teasa agus
solais anuas orainn.

High up in the skies there was a yellow
lamp known as the sun, shedding heat and
light down upon us. 

Ceol don Bhéal Bocht / Music for the Poor Mouth | Andrew Hamilton
meánsoprán & pianó / mezzo-soprano & piano

Le / By: Myles na gCopaleen
As / From: An Béal Bocht / The Poor Mouth
Atáirgthe le caoinchead ó / Reproduced by kind permission of:
© The Dolmen Press Ltd, Baile Átha Cliath / Dublin 1941
© Eibhlín Uí Nualláin, 1941, 1942, 1964, 1975, 1986
Cóipcheart aistriúcháin / Translation copyright © Hart-Davis, MacGibbon Ltd 1973
Athchlóite le caoinchead ó / Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
© Patrick C. Power 1973

Tionscadal na nAmhrán Ealaíne Gaeilge 2019 / Irish Art Song Project 2019

Ceol don Bhéal Bocht / Music for the Poor Mouth: (3) In airde / High up

“The problem is to get work done...it is a question of one’s spiritual constitution and one’s spiritual concentration, of isolation and distance...of monotony...of utopia...of idiocy...”

Thomas Bernhard

performed by Chamber Choir Ireland conducted by Paul Hillier

andyfrankhamilton

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