Ooh this is a jam!!! The darker side of Emma :P

Madeleine Lew, soprano; Ariana Davis, mezzo-soprano; Powell Brumm, baritone; Simon Faddoul, bass; Karl Leamont, sound engineer

Entering Hades

Entering Hades (Orpheus & Eurydice)

Written for the Royal Academy of Music  '200 Pieces' bicentennial project
Hugo Mak, bassoon

Tilt (2021) for bassoon

commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Gustavo Dudamel, Music & Artistic Director
premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with soloist Jay Campbell, conducted by Vimbayi Kaziboni
recorded at Walt Disney Concert Hall, courtesy of the LA Phil

excerpt of first five minutes, of ~twelve 

note | Amaru refers to the world serpent in Andean cosmology - rainbow-colored, two-headed, and dwelling beneath the earth. Associated with the emergence of underground water sources and transitions between worlds, Amaru is also related to the dark constellation serpent Mach’acuay whose seasonal appearance coincides with the warm rain season in the Andes and the appearance of terrestrial snakes.

'Amaru' joins a group of recent works that engage Andean & Irish cosmologies, my ancestry. With the distinct opportunity to write for the end of a program and next to a previous work, 'Talamh (land)', I wanted to explore a somewhat risky process: that of detuning an orchestra of strings. As 'Talamh' explores the topographies of Ireland through focused soundscapes, I wanted 'Amaru' to explore the loosening and tightening of ensemble, strings, conductor, and soloist through rich harmonies, wild harmonic gestures, and emergent, cyclic forms.

Amaru [2022] | LA Phil

An audio excerpt from our opera film, ‘A Thing I Cannot Name’

Cast
Rebecca: Kelli-Ann Masterson
Jean: Rachel Goode
Catherine: Aebh Kelly

Creative Team
Libretto: Megan Nolan
Director: Aoife Spillane-Hinks
Conductor: Elaine Kelly
Set and Costume Designer: Jack Scullion
Lighting Designer: Stephen Dodd
Répétiteur: Luke Lally-Maguire
Commissioned and produced by Irish National Opera
Filmed at The Complex, Dublin with thanks to Gansee Films
Recorded at Windmill Lane Studios and produced with thanks to Ergodos and special thanks to Caterina Schembri and Edu Prado 😊

Musicians
Flute: Lina Andonovska
Violin: Cora Venus Lunny
Double Bass: Caimin Gilmore
Electric Guitar: Barry O’Halpin
Percussion: Caitríona Frost
Piano: Luke Lally-Maguire

In the same city centre Dublin flat on New Year’s Eve over the years 2008, 2015, and 2019, three women reflect on the force of their desires.

Rebecca’s unrequited love for an aloof, narcissistic older woman; Jean’s obsession with a partner’s former lover, intense enough to verge into the erotic; and Catherine’s yearning to bear a child, to create a companion and break out of a painful seclusion. Their voices join each other across time, in an attempt to give a name to their desires.

Rebecca:
Frances, I looked over you with such shameless intensity
that I know you could feel it
Right away you were vivid, in full colour,
in a way that was almost too much,
which could nearly make you sick
if you looked too long

Jean:
I still feel that first low ache 
of you out there in the world
more beautiful than me
The blonde almost transparent
the skin so fine upon your eyes
purple threads beneath the lids
Your name won’t pass his lips anymore
His silence makes you louder in my head

Catherine:
Dear Baby
Here is the thing about a baby
it tells the time
The months are clear and known
here she smiles for the first time
now she walks without falling
there her tooth comes loose 
trapped in a wooden box
Dear Baby
there are things happening in the world
none of them to me
there are noises being made
just beyond my window

Jean:
He asked me to forget.
Would I marry him anyway?
Would I have his baby?

Rebecca:
The red slash of your mouth
in the steam of the kitchen
always parting to try something new
and melting into a happy O
when the something was good

A Thing I Cannot Name - opera excerpt

recording of Longwave by Chamber Choir Ireland, All Hallows Chapel, Dublin November 2022

Longwave (for chamber choir)

Live performance by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland at the National Concert Hall, Dublin as part of the Contemporary Music Centre's composer lab event on the 9th January 2023. 
Broadcast live on RTÉ Lyric FM.
Produced and recorded by RTÉ Lyric FM.

-	Title of the piece is a quote by Fernando Pessoa, a Portugese poet/writer. I heard this quote in a French movie by Jean-Luc Godard called “Hélas pour moi” and it struck me in a profound way. 

-	This piece is about the idea of nature reclaiming the earth once humankind have wiped themselves out. 

-	It features various states of growth and takeover as remnants of human-made structures get covered, tangled, choked and destroyed by plant-life.

-	A musical time-lapse culminating in a calm, poignantly beautiful, but ultimately lonely world.

Everything was asleep as if the universe was a vast mistake - 2022

Piano, Piano

Train Dreams - for piano and electronics

Truth And Beauty (2010)

For this piece I drew upon inspiration from time lapses of flowers; long, slow, and organic unfolding, or blossoming, of both musical material and use of the instruments. Each guitar begins playing only on the G string (one of the middle strings), and gradually incorporates neighboring strings until the full range of the instrument is used, then disassembles in a similar fashion. Blossom and furl also explores the cognitive dissonance that the listener experiences from antiphonal placement and the different rates of development and deconstruction that happens between the two parts.

Truth And Beauty (2010)

Emma O'Halloran

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