one of the most inspiring guitarists i've heard in a long time

507 Mechanical Movements

Redacted [piano solo]

Composer: Barry O'Halpin
Performers: Kirkos Ensemble & Barry O'Halpin (guitar).
Image: Rouzbeh Rashidi

Written as a companion to a 24' silent film by director Rouzbeh Rashidi, as part of Wilderness Notes, a collaborative project between Kirkos Ensemble, 3 Irish composers and 3 directors from Experimental Film Society. Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

Premiered September 2017 in a live performance/screening at Filmbase, Dublin.  Recorded Sept 2017 at Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin.

http://www.experimentalfilmsociety.com/
http://ensemble.ie/kirkos/

Notes on the Music:

"Much like Rouzbeh Rashidi’s accompanying film, the character of Stonemired is not linear or ‘narrative’, but abstract and dreamlike, as if wandering through rooms of the subconscious with starkly contrasting colours, images and emotions that are potent yet intangible. The figurative is fleeting amid a quietly churning and constantly evolving texture of drones and swells.  Just as the film embraces the distorted texture and grit of aging technologies, its sonic counterpart revels in noisy artifacts of vinyl, cassette and digital sampling, alongside the delicate acoustic impurities of barely pitched air and whispering bow hair. 

Stemming from a deep curiosity in the hidden musicality of nature, the harmonic palette is built from the sonified electromagnetic spectra of 5 chemical elements prevalent in organic cells; carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorous and oxygen. Each ethereal tangle of vibrations is like a fully formed musical organism, with moving parts and uncanny harmonies pushing beyond equal-tempered familiarity.

These sonic characters –the frosty anxiety of phosphorous, the triadic warmth of nitrogen – alternately appear in distorted, intermingled and pure elemental forms, having close kinship with the haunting recurring imagery of the film." (BOH)

Notes on the Film: 

“Rouzbeh Rashidi troublingly intertwines a dark variation on a home movie full of implications of isolation and toxic relationships with the memory of a nightmare of a nuclear holocaust to come. Making vivid use of the textures of outdated video technology, he questions the boundaries between personal and universal anxiety as they mesh in the charged resonances of a technology that has itself taken on the attributes of memory.” (RR)

Stonemired (part II) - for Kirkos Ensemble & Electronics

oct-dec ’17
written for Plus-Minus
ded. to Bryn Harrison, Amber Priestley, Sergei Zagny, Laurence Crane;
Matthew Shlomowitz & Plus-Minus

studio recording
Irine Røsnes (vln), Colin Frank (pc), me (kbd/guitar)

1. 0:00   2. 2:21   3. 7:41   4. 16:28

fp was given by Mark Knoop, Tom Pauwels, Serge Vuille & Kasia Ziminska @ City University

art (clockwise from top left): Joseph Albers — Study for Homage to the Square, 1967; Homage to the Square: SP–IV, 1967; Untitled (from Homage au Carré portfolio), 1965; Homage to the Square: Starting, 1968.

Set of four

carlos aguilar - bass flute
ross wightman - contrabass

qumran ii. rentier | for bass flute and contrabass (2018)

Short excerpt from 'the traces that remain', performed by members of the LSO at LSO St Luke's July 2018.

for 3 Gramophones, Stroh Violin, Stroh Cello, Bass Clarinet, Percussion, Sine Waves

for video of full piece please see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQcX3aU0Pxs

the traces that remain LSO (Excerpt- full vid below)

'drones... wilderness' A series of drones for ensemble and electronics interspersed with field recordings exploring the concept of wilderness. Originally formed part of a live soundtrack for an experimental Western by Maximillian Le Cain and Vicky Langan. Recorded by the Kirkos Ensemble in Dublin, 2017.

drones, wilderness

performed by the brilliant Amatis Trio.

Thank you to RTÉ Lyric FM for the recording!

Gone to Earth (for piano trio)

tea time improv doodles for 6 flutes, tambourine, a jar of quinoa, a nail brush and some mic finger pats

5 til 8

Barry O’ Halpin is a Dublin-based composer, member of Alarmist and electric guitarist with Crash Ensemble. 

In 2018-20 he was Arts & Humanities Artist in Residence at Parity Studios, University College Dublin, as well as Composer-In-Residence with Crash Ensemble, composing several works for solo guitar & small and large ensembles.

Written for diverse ensembles, his compositions frequently draw inspiration from the sounds and patterns of natural phenomena, weaving musical materials from animal choruses, electromagnetic spectra and the imagery of microbiology.  

His highly textural music is shot through with a crawling, organic energy, often preoccupied with unfamiliar microtonal sonorities, fluctuating rhythms, and liminal timbres.  He frequently explores new uses of the electric guitar alongside classical instrumentation, employing invented tunings and unorthodox techniques to create a sound-world less familiar than the sum of its parts.

His piece Lipids was written for and performed by Crash Ensemble in their 2015-16 Born in the 80s tour, and featured in their 2016 Composing the Island Music Marathon at the NCH.  In 2015, Toric for string orchestra was commissioned and performed by Fishamble Sinfonia & guest director Darragh Morgan, and earlier that year his Miniature for piano was performed by Raymond Deane in the Kevin Barry Room. NCH. Both as composer and guitarist, he has worked closely with Crash, Kirkos & Bastard Assignments, and curated the latter's 2014 Dublin show. 

As a member of Crash, he has premiered works by composers such as Tansy Davies, Ann Cleare, David Lang & Michael Gordon and performed at festivals Musica Nova (Finland)and Gaida (Lithuania).

He was Guitar Fellow at Bang On A Can’s 2017 Summer Music Festival in the Massachussetts, USA, as well as their November 2016 Villa Musica residency in Germany.

He is a composer and performer with experimental rock band Alarmist, whose 2015 LP Popular Demain, along with two previous EPs, have gained them an international following. Alarmist have gained acclaim for their live shows, with tours in the UK, Europe & Canada, including festivals Ottawa Jazz, Arctangent (UK), 12 Points (SWE/IR) and Match & Fuse (FR/UK). Media coverage has included BBC Radio, WNYC/NPR, All About Jazz, The Guardian and Nialler9.

He is currently a PhD candidate at Queen’s University Belfast with Simon Mawhinney. In 2013 he obtained an MMus (Distinction) in Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London under Gwyn Pritchard & Paul Newland, 
In 2010 he was awarded the Geoffrey Singleton prize for his composition portfolio upon graduation from Music in Trinity College Dublin, where he studied with composers Donnacha Dennehy and Sean Reed.


(photo by Sophie Murphy)

Stonemired (part II) - for Kirkos Ensemble & Electronics

Barry O'Halpin

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