Commissioned by Sligo International Chamber Music Festival 2021.
Written for and performed by Dermot Dunne on 1st May 2021.

For accordion and electronics/backing track. 
Recorded live by Simon Cullen.

A reflection on the dystopian eeriness of lockdown.

The title for this piece is inspired by news reports from Italy during lockdown depicting people watching each other across the empty squares from the confinement of their apartments and balconies. 

The piece itself is an atmospheric, almost cinematic representation of the anxieties and frustrations a lot of us have felt over the past year. 

Working with Dermot is always an exciting endeavour and the accordion mixed with electronics allows for a very intense, chaotic battle between man and machine!

Across The Empty Squares

Performed live at St. Andrew's Church, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin on the 16th November 2022. 
Featuring:
Christian-Pierre La Marca (cello) and Félicien Brut (accordion.
Music Network Commission.

We are taken on a journey through a fictional Irish winters day moving from a mysteriously foggy, dull morning, through a dark and brooding thunder storm, and out the other side into sunshine! A typical day of wintery Irish weather!

Winter Wisps Softly Dissipate 2022

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

"Fusion" for double bass and fixed electronics was written for the Crash ensemble in 2002 and performed by Malachy Robinson. 

This is a live recording so the quality is not as good as it could be but I think it captures the piece well. 

New upload 03/07/23

Fusion Blend

Piece commissioned by Concorde. Garth Knox on viola with Jane O'Leary on piano and Paul Roe on clarinet. Recorded by Darby Carroll at the Hugh Lane Gallery. 

fine feathers far below the blue floor 2011

Commissioned by singer Michelle O'Rourke for vocal duo Tryst with funds from the Arts Council. Performed here by Michelle O'Rourke (voice), Nora Ryan (voice), Jonathan Brigg (piano), Dennis Cassidy (drums), Sean Maynard Smith (bass), Adrian Hart (violin) and Laura Hyland (vocal textures). Recorded at the Backloft, Dublin, 1 November 2011. &#13;
Tryst have spent the last two months touring their incredible show in New York, Dublin and Berlin. It has been an amazing and unforgettable journey.&#13;
This piece is uses a section of text from American poet Walt Whitman's "Song of myself" and was, rather aptly, premiered in Brooklyn, New York.&#13;
<a href="http://trystvocalduo.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://trystvocalduo.wordpress.com</a>/&#13;
&#13;


...mad sweet pangs through my belly and breast... 2011

Written for Adele and Martin Johnson , viola and cello in 2016 and premiered at the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin's Salon series.

Swells And Shoots 2016

Written for Concorde ensemble. Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, piano, accordion, violin, cello and tape.

...within an egg of space... 2009

Written for cellist Laura Moody. Piece for cello and tape

Up to my f-holes 2008

Written for Elisabeth Smalt of Trio Scordatura. Piece for adapted viola and tape.

hush... 2008

Accumulation 2000

In 2005/6 I worked with two choreographers, Anna Melander and Vince Virr on their dance pieces. 

Angels and demons (for choreographer Vince Virr) 2006

This it the tape part of my new piece for Ondes Martenot and tape. It was written in collaboration and for Nathalie Forget an Ondist from Paris. I hope to get a live recording with Nathalie's live part included soon. 

I wrote it while on a 3 month residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris from Feb-May 2012. 

"Jeux de bague" translates roughly as "play the ring" which is a technique used for playing the Ondes Martenot. It seemed an appropriate add on to the name of the piece!

FLUX - jeux de bague (tape part only) 2012

Live recording of a solo set I performed as part of my featured composer set at the Chamber Music festival on Valentia Island, Kerry 2018. 

This was an experimental project using just my voice and a loop pedal. I was totally performed on the fly and I have uploaded it warts and all. 

It was presented as a meditative piece of music between 15-20 minutes long depending on the live situation. I warned the audience that it was an experimental process where anything could potentially happen or go wrong and asked them to relax and possibly close their eyes for the duration.

http://www.chambermusiconvalentia.com

Solo set Valentia island 2018

This is a live set that I performed for the Cassandra Voices Christmas Gathering at Tailor's Hall, Dublin on the 13th December 2019. Apologies for the dodgy sound quality!

https://cassandravoices.com

Solo set for Cassandra Voices Dec 2019

On my Soundcloud page you can find live recordings from various concerts my pieces have been performed at over the years. Check out Spotify or my webpage for my studio recorded CD's.
I am a composer/musician/performer and all round music lover based in Dublin, Ireland. I have been writing music for the past 20 years and have been greatly inspired by living in such places as Berlin, London, York, Paris and Dublin. In general my music stems from the electro-acoustic world and its core technique is based on the pratices of musique concrète. Over the years this has expanded and been influenced by more improvised and instrumental territories derived from a deep exploration of instrumental timbre through collaborative projects with a large number of solo musicians.

My work is deeply textural and developed through complex layering techniques. For the most part each piece is highly collaborative as I work closely with musicians to find out what their instruments can do. Over the years I have recorded a wide range of instruments from the standard orchestral choices to the Ondes Martenot and adapted viola. Each player offers something new to the mix and so each piece is unique to the player(s) involved.

I will continue to explore different instruments and also different instrumental styles expanding out of the classical domain and into jazz, world music, traditional and popular styles to see what I can learn from them.

I ran a night called Listen at Lilliput with Laura Hyland and we put on music events every second month at Lillliput Press in Stonerbatter Dublin. www.facebook.com/listenatlilliput
www.soundcloud.com/listenatlilliput
www.twitter.com/listenlilliput

Over the years my work has been performed by numerous ensembles in Europe and North America including Concorde ensemble (Ireland), Crash ensemble (Ireland), Evlana (Ireland), Bradyworks (Canada) and Percussemble (Germany). I have also worked/recorded closely with a great many wonderful musicians such as Lina Andonovska (flute), Matthew Jacobson (drums), Martin Johnson (cello), Kate Ellis (cello), Malachy Robinson (double bass), Michelle O’Rourke (mezzo soprano), Garth Knox (viola), Natasha Lohan (mezzo soprano), Rolf Hind (piano), Paul Roe (clarinet), Jane O’Leary (piano), Laura Moody (cello), Beau Stocker (percussion), Damien Harron (percussion), Panayiotis Demopoulos (piano), Valerie Pearson (violin), Elisabeth Smalt (adapted viola), Nathalie Forget (Ondes Martenot), Andre Leroux (tenor saxophone) and many more. See my LIVE page to find out who played on what.

After completing my PhD by composition at the University of York, UK in 2009 I returned to Ireland to re-establish myself on the Irish music scene. Since then I have expanded my musical output by writing for theatre (OFF PLAN by Simon Doyle), putting together a multidisciplinary festival called Sensorium with two colleagues of mine from York, Angie Atmadjaja and Emily Kalies and accompanying composer/songwriter Laura Hyland on vocals under the name Clang Sayne. Myself and Laura also run a night bi-monthly called Listen at Lilliput which aims to promote people who are exploring their music in interesting ways. It is held in Lilliput Press, Stoneybatter, Dublin on the last Sunday of every second month. 

I am a co-founder of The-Link-Project organization, alongside Angie Atmadjaja, Emily Kalies and Enrico Bertelli, through which the music festival “Sensorium” was presented in March 2011 at Project, Cube, with funding from a music project award from the Arts Council of Ireland. This festival aimed to promote music in innovative arrangements including contemporary music, improvisation, electronic music, electro-acoustic music, music and video, music and dance and performance art along with other co-creative media.

Judith Ring

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