The Zaffre Project - live in Austin April 2015
Todd Reynolds, violin and electronics
Frode Andersen, accordion
Ejnar Kanding, sound design and electronics

This is a recording from a concert at the Fusebox Festival in Austin, Texas, 17th April 2014

The Zaffre Project : PermanentKraplak

Sarcasms, four pieces for orchestra

Performers:
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra
Gavin Maloney, conductor

Recorded at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, on January 20th 2015, as part of the RTÉ NSO's Horizons Series.

Sarcasms, for orchestra

The concept of the piece is to push time forward thus to find ourselves constantly in motion. The form  is produced by the contradiction of a linear  sense of time with the vertical one. The material is made out of metallic sounds plus balloοn tones, friction on percussive instruments and  gestures of pigeons recorded in open space. The sounds were made using max and supercollider plus various max4live devices.
https://festivalexnihilo.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/concierto-acusmatico-edomex-estado-invitado-de-ex_nihilo-2017/
Highly commended in ARS ELECTRONICA 2018
https://www.forumwallis.ch/programm-2018arselectronicaforumwallis.htm

In Motion (2015)

'(I-V)' // Performed by the Clarion Horn Trio

Cycling- OPRF

Extract from live performance of 'loaded silence' for piano and recorded ice by Karen Power
Isabelle O'Connell, piano


Loaded Silence by Karen Power(extract)

Sheet music available here: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/publishers/ewing-lauder-sheet-music/3005433

Loss

THE ARTIST’S MUSE by Laura Schwendinger
For flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano & percussion
Written for the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston
For the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, and dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky
______________
Musical portraits of seven women, in works by Petrus Christus, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo Da Vinci, Paul Cezanne, Johannes Vermeer, John Singer Sargent and Gustav Klimt
1) Portrait of a Young Girl, circa 1470 by Petrus Christus
2) Jacqueline with Crossed-Hands,1954 by Picasso
3) Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, 1489–1490 of Cecilia Gallerani 
4) Woman in a Green Hat (Madame Cezanne), 1895 by Paul Cezanne
5) Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, 1662 by Johannes Vermeer
6) Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)by John Singer Sargent, 1884
7) Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907 by Gustav Klimt
_______________________________
Boston Musical Intelligencer Review; May 21, 2017
Chameleon Paints With Music by Leon Golub
The Artist’s Muse for flute, clarinet, cello, piano and percussion, a world premiere Koussevitsky Commission from Laura Elise Schwendinger, followed. Without the mediation of words, the composer proceeded directly to the inspiration behind the painter’s work, bringing to life the women behind seven famous masterpieces, as though honoring but also contesting the visual surface. Throughout, Boldin’s flute served beautifully as the ongoing voice of the perennial muse, the elusive “Other” constructed by the gaze of male painters. A short introduction took us out of linear time, William Manley’s percussion especially effective in plunging us into vanished realms, from the enigmatic interiority of a 15th-century Young Girl by Petrus Christus, to the concluding gold-patterned swirl of Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer. Picasso’s Jacqueline appeared with all of her modernist angst, Cézanne’s wife moved bodily in a poignant waltz, Leonardo’s Cecilia Gallerani stroked her elegant carnivorous ermine, and Vermeer’s Girl with a Pitcher appeared with staccatos in the piano and pizzicatos in the strings, bathed in the light of percussion as she poured her milk. With a sudden twist of waltz, so to speak, the mood darkened as the eternal muse took the form of Sargent’s Madame X, cosmopolitan and scandalous, high-priestess of intoxication and city lights, followed in conclusion by her more vulnerable sister, gold-shimmering Adele Bloch-Bauer, vestal and victim, muse and mourner. Schwendinger’s delightful piece effectively transformed my own gaze on the Artist’s Muse by introducing a competing muse of flesh and bone, hardship and failure, grievance and glory, behind the painter’s still-life effigy.

Laura Elise Schwendinger  The Artist's Muse

Sympathetic Strings is for guitar and tape. It was written at the end of 2016 for guitarist and composer Benjamin Dwyer, who I've known for years and have written an earlier piece, 'the red thread'. This is the world premiere recorded in Ryogoku-Monten Hall, Tokyo in September 2017. Thanks to Yuji Itoh and Satoko Inoue for organising the series 'Music Documents' and inviting us. The tape part begins and ends the piece, and solo guitar appears in the centre (with some overlap). The tape uses guitar sounds, often transformed. these were recorded by the composer.

Sympathetic Strings

ROTORELIEF suite for speaking conductor and ensemble. 
Live recording from concert at l´Espace de projection at IRCAM with KammarensembleN in 2006. Speaking conductor: Franck Ollu

ROTORELIEF suite

Somewhere… where the rainbow ends for flute, clarinet, piano and percussions (2009) was commissioned by Associação Portuguesa de Flautas and is dedicated to Performa ensemble.

The text used in this piece is extraction of a long poem I wrote about 15 years ago, one day when the ancient rainbow was singing inside me.
Rainbow for me symbolizes the dream… dream which we want so much to live, but risk that one day we wake up into the rough reality… but is it really so? Is it risk to dream? Does the rainbow end somewhere?...
I am convinced that without dreams there would be no reality to create; and that “somewhere, where the rainbow…”, is a magic blend of ends and beginnings… I hope the rainbow will never end for any of us, and will always paint beautiful songs inside everyone…



Somewhere… where the rainbow ends… (the fragment of the poem used in this piece)

At the eleventh hour see drained tree in broken mirror…into seven seconds
undefinable danger
illusory visions in the deepness of soul…on sale
almost schizophrenic rainbow
subjective risk!
tortmenting hesitation
sparkling fire spasm...

pull out some pages wet of tears dried out

unwanted truth!
defensive reaction
returning preliminary past… or....is that past future?
walking through dream seeing that double image in the mirror

throw out the mask!
I want to feel your eyes
so far..so unattainable… but…still so close…

Somewhere...where the rainbow ends...

John McLachlan was born in Dublin and studied music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and Trinity College Dublin. He has studied composition with William York, Robert Hanson and Kevin Volans. He holds a PhD in musicology from Trinity College Dublin, where he specialised in researching the compositional techniques of Boulez, Xenakis, Lutoslawski and Carter.

His works have been performed on five continents in over 30 countries with broadcasts in many territories. Performers who have played his music include the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Opera Theatre Company, the National Chamber Choir, Concorde, Sequenza, Traject, Archaeus, Pro Arte, Antipodes, Ensemble Nordlys, The Fidelio Trio, The ConTempo Quartet and Trio Arbós as well as many prominent soloists including Ian Pace, John Feeley, Mary Dullea, Darragh Morgan, Satoko Inoue and David Adams. Commissioners include the RTE NSO, Music Network, Lyric fm, the Musica Viva Festival and the National Concert Hall.

His music has been included on the following recordings: AIC CD 1, CMC CD 4, Irish Contemporary Organ Music (David Adams), CMC CD 9, Islands (John Feeley, guitar), Gothic (Mary Dullea, Metier records) and RIAM piano syllabus CDs; many of his pedagogical piano works have been published by the Royal Irish Academy of Music in their piano syllabus anthologies. 

His music is available from the Contemporary Music Centre www.cmc.ie. His website is www.johnmclachlan.org You can find scores scrolling on his YouTube channel, link above.

Sympathetic Strings

John McLachlan, composer

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