Labowa Jesień: Evolutionary Environments

Programme:

Grainne Mul­vey Luca
Ian Wil­son The empti­ness of the ever-expand­ing uni­verse can­not com­pare to the void where your heart should be
Ann Cleare Inner
Jane O’Leary Win­ter Reflec­tions
Pedro Rebe­lo Crana
Eduard Zatriqi War Games

Performers:

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble:

Ais­ling Agnew flutes
Sarah Watts clar­inets
Cia­ran McCabe vio­lin
David McCann vio­lon­cel­lo
Daniel Brow­ell piano
Paul McCusker con­duc­tor

Luca (2017), com­posed for Hard Rain Solois­t­Ensem­ble, refers to the Last Uni­ver­sal Com­mon Ances­tor, echo­ing Tyn­dal­l’s sup­port for Dar­win’s the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion. The piece moves from chaot­ic clus­ters to the­mat­ic ges­tures, sym­bol­is­ing the inter­de­pen­dence of all life.

The empti­ness of the ever-expand­ing uni­verse… (2018) was com­mis­sioned and pre­miered by Hard Rain Solois­t­Ensem­ble. It reflects the gen­uine empti­ness of cer­tain polit­i­cal promis­es and desires through music of sparse melod­ic and har­mon­ic means.

“Ded­i­cat­ed to so-called lead­ers and peo­ple in pow­er every­where who pan­der to their own desires, dog­mas, pock­ets, nar­row sup­port bases and/or share­hold­ers instead of serv­ing the com­mon good. You will be our undoing.”

Inner (2009) probes the idea of a sub­cu­ta­neous space with­in sound. Through its kinet­ic activ­i­ty and auto­scop­ic ten­den­cies, the piece aims to explore inter­nal struc­tures of sound and turn them out­ward: iso­lat­ing, focus­ing on, and reveal­ing sounds in time and space. The piano and cel­lo are mutu­al­ly depen­dent in order to func­tion. They alter­nate the roles of what is con­sid­ered inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or: with­in raw tim­bral worlds, com­plex, small­er worlds are at work, and with­in large, del­i­cate struc­tures, sharp inner worlds exist. Inner worlds grow, escape, sep­a­rate and intrude into the out­er world. Out­er worlds encom­pass, pro­tect, sup­port, and dis­solve into inner worlds. Inter­nal struc­tures and fold­ed sin­gu­lar­i­ties are revealed: what was inte­ri­or is forced out­ward, and the inte­ri­or acquires a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al qual­i­ty — the out­er sur­face frag­ments, reveal­ing and releas­ing what is subcutaneous.

Win­ter Reflec­tions (2010) was com­posed for the open­ing of a new con­cert space at the Con­tem­po­rary Music Cen­tre in Dublin. The trio was writ­ten for mem­bers of the ensem­ble Con­corde, and the work con­tains an ele­ment of free­dom and explo­ration — the three musi­cians react to each oth­er’s lines, cre­at­ing new colours and play­ing with sound.

Crana (2024) is a son­ic explo­ration of the Riv­er Crana in Done­gal, Ire­land. Along its short 12-mile course, the riv­er offers an impres­sive diver­si­ty of sound­scapes, reflect­ing var­i­ous envi­ron­ments and water flows. The work uses immer­sive field record­ings as the basis for devel­op­ing instru­men­tal mate­r­i­al that invites active lis­ten­ing and inter­ac­tion between per­form­ers — through a score that nego­ti­ates rela­tion­ships between fixed and flu­id musi­cal ideas. Crana was com­posed for Hard Rain Solois­t­Ensem­ble and had its pre­miere at the Hud­der­s­field Con­tem­po­rary Music Fes­ti­val in 2024.

War Games (2016) was com­posed as a musi­cal com­men­tary on the con­flicts evi­dent around the world in ear­ly 2016. Read­ing arti­cles about the rise of pop­ulism, nation­al­ism and vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed in the name of reli­gion, I was struck by human­i­ty’s appar­ent inabil­i­ty or unwill­ing­ness to learn from its own mis­takes. This idea of his­tor­i­cal recur­rence inspired me to cre­ate a work in which musi­cal mate­r­i­al devel­ops but nev­er ful­ly trans­forms. The iden­ti­ty of the ges­tures per­sists stub­born­ly through­out the course of the dra­matur­gy. Fur­ther­more, Marx’s state­ment that his­to­ry repeats itself “first as tragedy, then as farce” had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on the dra­mat­ic con­struc­tion of the piece. The themes appear­ing in the intro­duc­tion are there­fore par­o­died in the coda. The finale of the work thus con­sti­tutes a sar­don­ic return to its open­ing. War Games, com­posed for Hard Rain as part of the Peter Ross­er Com­po­si­tion Award, rep­re­sents a syn­the­sis of post-ser­i­al tech­niques with an inter­est in sounds pro­duced through uncon­ven­tion­al per­for­mance techniques.

Evo­lu­tion­ary Envi­ron­ments is sup­port­ed by the British Coun­cil under the UK/Poland Sea­son 2025.

The con­cert is an event in the Lab Autumn series, part of the War­saw Autumn Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val program.

Evo­lu­tion­ary Envi­ron­ments aims to chal­lenge our per­cep­tion of our­selves and the world that sur­rounds us. Much of the music in this pro­gramme urges us to con­sid­er our exis­tence, not only in the larg­er sense of our plan­et, but also in how we relate to each oth­er, and under­stand the cur­rent con­di­tions of our society. 

Programme:

Grainne Mul­vey Luca 

Ian Wil­son The empti­ness of the ever-expand­ing uni­verse can­not com­pare to the void where your heart should be 

Ann Cleare Inner 

Jane O’Leary Win­ter Reflec­tions 

Pedro Rebe­lo Crana 

Eduard Zatriqi War Games 

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble:

Ais­ling Agnew flutes

Sarah Watts clar­inets

Cia­ran McCabe vio­lin 

David McCann vio­lon­cel­lo 

Daniel Brow­ell piano 

Paul McCusker con­duc­tor

Realisation:

pro­gram con­cept and text: Hard Rain Solois­t­Ensem­ble
pro­duc­tion: Lil­ian­na Krych
visu­al iden­ti­ty: Alek­san­dra Ołdak
sound engi­neer: Kos­ma Standera
part­ners: Hard Rain Solois­t­Ensem­ble, British Coun­cil UK, Arts Coun­cil of North­ern Ire­land, QUB Music, SARC, PRSf, CMC

The Con­tem­po­rary Music Space Hash­tag Lab is co-financed by the City of Warsaw.

The media patrons of the Con­tem­po­rary Music Space Hash­tag Lab are POLMIC​.PL and Dwo­j­ka Pol­ish Radio.

About the program:

Luca (2017), cre­at­ed for Hard Rain Soloist Ensem­ble, reflects on the Last Uni­ver­sal Com­mon Ances­tor, echo­ing Tyn­dal­l’s sup­port of Dar­win’s the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion. The piece tran­si­tions from chaot­ic clus­ters to the­mat­ic ges­tures, sym­bol­iz­ing the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of all life.

The empti­ness of the ever-expand­ing uni­verse… (2018) was com­mis­sioned and pre­miered by Hard Rain Solois­t­Ensem­ble, and reflects the actu­al empti­ness of cer­tain polit­i­cal promis­es and desires in music of mea­gre melod­ic and har­mon­ic means. “Ded­i­cat­ed to so-called lead­ers and peo­ple in pow­er every­where who pan­der to their own desires, dog­mas, pock­ets, nar­row sup­port bases, and/or stock­hold­ers instead of serv­ing the greater good. You will be the end of us all.”

Inner (2009) probes the idea of a sub­cu­ta­neous space with­in sound. Through its kinet­ic activ­i­ty and auto­scop­ic ten­den­cies, the piece aims to explore inter­nal struc­tures of sound and turn them out­ward: iso­lat­ing, focus­ing on, and reveal­ing sounds in their time and space. The piano and cel­lo are depen­dent on each oth­er to func­tion. They alter­nate the roles of what is con­sid­ered inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or: with­in harsh tim­bral worlds there are intri­cate, small­er worlds at work, and with­in large del­i­cate worlds, harsh inner worlds exist. Inner worlds grow, escape, sep­a­rate from, and intrude on, the out­er world. Out­er worlds encom­pass, sur­round, pro­tect, sup­port and dis­solve into inner worlds. Inter­nal struc­tures and infold­ed idio­syn­crasies are revealed: what was inward is forced out­ward, the inter­nal is giv­en a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al qual­i­ty, frag­ment­ing the out­er sur­face, reveal­ing and unleash­ing the subcutaneous.

Win­ter Reflec­tions (2010) was writ­ten for the open­ing of a new per­for­mance space at the Con­tem­po­rary Music Cen­tre, Dublin. The trio was writ­ten for mem­bers of Con­corde, and there is an ele­ment of free­dom and explo­ration as the three musi­cians react to each oth­er’s lines, cre­at­ing new colours and play­ing with sounds.

Crana (2024) is a son­ic explo­ration of the Riv­er Crana in Done­gal, Ire­land. Through its short 12-mile path, the riv­er has an impres­sive vari­ety of sound­scapes, reflect­ing var­i­ous envi­ron­ments and water flows. The work uses immer­sive field record­ings as the base for deriv­ing instru­men­tal mate­ri­als which invite active lis­ten­ing and inter­ac­tion between the per­form­ers through a score that nego­ti­ates rela­tion­ships between fixed and flu­id musi­cal ideas. Crana was com­posed for Hard Rain Solois­t­Ensem­ble and pre­miered at Hud­der­s­field Con­tem­po­rary Music Fes­ti­val in 2024.

War Games (2016) was com­posed as a musi­cal com­men­tary on the con­flicts evi­dent around the world in ear­ly 2016. Read­ing news arti­cles con­cern­ing the rise of pop­ulism, nation­al­ism, and vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed in the name of reli­gion, I was struck by human­i­ty’s appar­ent inability/unwillingness to learn from past errors. This notion of his­toric recur­rence inspired me to com­pose a work in which musi­cal mate­r­i­al is devel­oped, but does not trans­form com­plete­ly. The iden­ti­ty of ges­tures there­fore per­sists stub­born­ly through­out the course of the dra­matur­gy. More­over, Marx’s state­ment that his­to­ry repeats itself, “first as a tragedy and sec­ond as a farce” had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on the design of the work’s dra­mat­ic struc­ture. Themes that occur in the intro­duc­tion are par­o­died in the coda. Thus, the finale of the work is intend­ed to serve as a sar­don­ic reprise of the open­ing sec­tion. Com­posed for Hard Rain for the Peter Ross­er Com­po­si­tion Award, War Games rep­re­sents a syn­the­sis between post-ser­i­al pro­ce­dures and inter­est in sounds pro­duced via uncon­ven­tion­al per­for­mance techniques.