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The global celebration of the centennial of John Cage inspired composer and computer music software developer Eric Lyon to create a networked programme which catalyses the performance of an improvising ensemble by giving  musical instructions of indeterminate duration and combination. Eric’s programme sends instructions across a wireless network to screens in front of each performer.  The selection and duration of the instructions are randomly generated from a customised set of possibilities.  They differ for each performer, and for each performance. Thus is employed one of Cage’s most important artistic ideas, the structured use of indeterminacy in performance, so that what happens is neither random nor predictable.  The result differs from free improvisation.  Involved in a system carefully designed to elicit the unexpected, the surprising, and hopefully the delightful, the performers mediate between the known and unknown to make what Eric calls “noise.”

Martin Dowling (fiddle), Ryan Molloy (piano), and Úna Monaghan (harp), have joined forces with Eric, forming the Trad Noise Trio to explore the possibilities of combining Irish traditional music and systematic indeterminacy. Following Eric’s specially “tradified” vocabulary of commands and timings, the trio take common Irish tunes (jigs, reels, polkas, and airs) and inflect them through his computational “noise” generator.  Tunes are played straight and the bent, spliced, stretched, compressed, and possibly reconstructed into something magical, unpredictable, and unrepeatable called “trad noise.”

TRAD NOISE TRIO
Martin Dowling           Fiddle
Ryan Molloy               Piano
Úna Monaghan          Harp
Eric Lyon                    Noise Programming

Recorded in the Sonic Lab and the Harty Room, School of Creative Arts, Queen's University Belfast, by Chris Corrigan

For further information or to acquire the CD, contact Martin at m.dowling@qub.ac.uk

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Sarah Ponsonby

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