MANTIS FESTIVAL 2-3 March 2019 with guest violinist Darragh Morgan
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| Pictured above, Darragh Morgan Credits: Photography: Frances Marshall - 3D violinist and montage: Manusamo&Bzika |
MANTIS FESTIVAL
With Darragh Morgan (violin)
Address:
Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama
Coupland Street
M13 9PL, Manchester, UK
PROGRAMME
Saturday 6pm Concert 1 (90 minutes)
Pierre Boulez: Anthemes II (Darragh Morgan, Violin + electronics)
Manuella Blackburn/Camden Reeves: The Eye of the Stars (Toy piano + electronics)
Manuella Blackburn: Landline (fixed media)
(Interval 10)
Ricardo Climent: Duel of Strings (Darragh Morgan "non-virtual Violin" v.s "Virtual strings")
Luke Dobbin: Angle Cadence (fixed media)
Chris Rhodes: Musica Corporis (fixed media)
Saturday 8pm Concert 2 (60 minutes)
Hayley Suviste: In those Days/Community (fixed media)
Adriana Ruiz: Vuelvo al sur (fixed media)
Tasos Asonitis: Concurrent.States.Becoming (audio visual)
Benoit Andre: Child’s Play (fixed media)
Sarah Keirle: Okypete and Aello (fixed media)
Sunday 3 March
Sunday 1pm
RedDALSA CD Launch (Martin Harris Centre Foyer)
RedASLA is the Latin-American Network for Sonic Arts, an organisation started in 1995 and aiming to disseminate worldwide sonic creativity and research from its members.
From RedASLA’s viewpoint, Sonic Art amalgamates any artistic activity focused on sound as the means for creative expression, while providing technology with a primary role in the creative process.
RedASLA embraces Sonic Arts from an open perspective, consciously aiming not to set boundaries or constraints on the variety and broadness of any sonic expression or aesthetic consideration from its members.
This double album is the Vth and VIth published CD since the Network started.
Hongshuo Fan: Handwriting - WuXing (Performer + electronics + video)
Seth Scott: Burnout/Anatomy of Three Velociities (fixed media)
Ryan Woods: Featherless Bipeds (fixed media)
Steve Summers: Eternal Cosmic Heat Dissipation (fixed media)
Simon Hellewell; Diverged at a Yellow Wood (Performer, Violln + electronics)
Biography: Darragh Morgan
Irish violinist Darragh Morgan has a hugely diverse career. Concerto highlights include working closely with Arvo Part, performing his Tabula Rasa at the RTE Living Music Festival, followed by over 20 performances with London Musici / Rambert Dance Company. Regular solo appearances with the Ulster Orchestra include the world premiere of Sir John Tavener’s Hymn of Dawn which he also performed with the Istanbul Symphony Orchestra, Dallapiccola's Tartiniana Seconda, world premiere of Bill Campbell’s Swim for Violin & Orchestra, live on BBC Radio 3 from Sonorities Festival and Samuel Barber’s violin concerto which Darragh also gave the South African premiere of with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra. He has recorded Donnacha Dennehy’s Elastic Harmonic with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, with whom he has also premiered Brian Irvine’s A Mon Seul Desir and gave the world premiere of Andrew Poppy’s Darwin’s Sin Draw with the Crash Ensemble. Other concerto appearances include Koln Kammer Orchester, Camerata Tinta Barocca Cape Town and Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.
As a chamber musician and soloist Darragh has performed at many International Festivals including Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern, Ars Musica Brussels, Maerz Musik Berlin, Festival d’Automne Paris, Klangspuren Schwaz, Osterfestival Tirol, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Lucerne Festival, National Arts Festival South Africa, BBC Proms Chamber Music, Aldeburgh, Spitalfields, Cheltenham, Brighton, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, ICMC, Ether Festival, City of London Festival and St Magnus International Festival. He is violinist and founding member of the Fidelio Trio with whom he has appeared at the Wigmore Hall, Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, Symphony Space New York, Casa da Musica Porto, Johannesburg Musical Society and recorded Michael Nyman’s complete piano trios for MN Records. They are currently Artists in Residence at St Patricks College, Dublin. Previously as violinist with The Smith Quartet Darragh performed and recorded with as diverse artists as Philip Glass, Louis Andriessen, Gavin Bryars and Steve Reich. They appeared internationally at Seoul Arts Centre, Bang on a Can Marathon New York, The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. and made an acclaimed recording of Philip Glass’ complete string quartets on Signum Records.
World-class international groups Darragh has led include Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Musik Fabrik, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Remix Ensemble, Athelas Sinfonietta and Red Note Ensemble, collaborating with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen, Heinz Holliger, Paul Daniel, Francois-Xavier Roth and En Shao. He has been invited to lead the Macau Orchestra, Les Siecles, Opus 20, English Touring Opera, BBC 2’s Genius of Beethoven series, English Session Orchestra and throughout the 2004 season was Artistic Director of Baroque 2000 in South Africa.
Darragh has recorded over 50 CDs for labels including Mode, NMC, Black Box, Altarus, Naxos, Nimbus, Signum and Delphian. He broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3, NPR, CBC, WQXR, RTE and WDR.
Darragh is currently professor of violin at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, guest violin lecturer at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and previously Director of The Junior Guildhall String Ensemble. Darragh is Course Director of Pro Corda Violin Course. He has taught chamber music and contemporary music performance at the Royal College of Music, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme and Apple Hill Centre for Chamber Music. He has been invited to give masterclasses at Stellenbosch Conservatorium, Busk Aid Soweto, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and Birmingham Conservatoire. In 2010 Darragh curated The Irish-American Series at Kings Place, London and has been Artistic Director of CoMA’s Open Score project and Music @ Drumcliffe in Ireland. Darragh has appeared as a mentor on the RTE series Classic Jam, working with a young string quartet and also as mentor to Katie Derham in the Sky Arts production, First Love.
Darragh has premiered music by Johannes Maria Staud, Michael Nyman, Arvo Part, John Tavener, Gavin Bryars, Kevin Volans, Howard Skempton, Yannis Kryakides, Emmanuel Nunes, Gerald Barry, Graham Fitkin, Mira Calix and Stephen Montague. Composers who have dedicated works to him include Michael Finnissy, Chris Newman, Donnacha Dennehy, Joseph Phibbs, Richard Causton, Joe Cutler, Deirdre Gribbin, Ed Bennett, Micheal O’Suilleabhain, Piers Hellawell, Andrew Poppy, Morgan Hayes, Dmitri Smirnov, Christopher Fox, Lukas Ligeti, Jonty Harrison and Simon Emmerson. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists including Rokia Traore, Thomas Ades, Emmanuel Pahud, John Tilbury, Joanna MacGregor, writer Alexander McCall Smith, French Horn player Richard Watkins and Jazz saxophonist Peter King.
Darragh studied with Detlef Hahn at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. He has received chamber music coaching from The Amadeus & Takacs String Quartets, and participated in masterclasses with Sidney Griller, Yehudi Menuhin, Mauricio Fuks, Paul Zukofsky, Pinchas Zukerman, Yfrah Neaman, Pierre Amoyal and in the field of Irish traditional music during his formative years with the legendary Sligo fiddle player Joe O Dowd. Darragh plays an 1848 Giuseppe Rocca violin, generously on loan from the Morgan-Rocca Instrument Trust which is administered by The Royal Society of Musicians.
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Supported by
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CD 1 RedASLA
1. s.laag (8’43”) / 2016 - Ricardo Climent
2. Homenaje a las ciudades invisibles (4’16”) / 2017 - Otto Castro
3. 4. 5. Sistemas volátiles / 2011 - Adina Izarra
3. I. Convolución (4’23”)
4. II. Chiuiui (3’24”)
5. III. Refrán (3’46”)
6. Graffiti (6’00’’) / 2013 - Mauricio Fonseca López
7. Palabras vacías (6’23”) / 2017 - Ricardo de Armas
8. La otra concertación (13’12”) /- Eduardo Cáceres
9. Words through the worlds (1’02”) / 1997 - Ricardo Dal Farra
10. Interlineal (10’46”) / 2017 - Rodrigo Sigal
CD 2 RedASLA
1. Repetition of perception (7’40”) / 2012 - Rodrigo Sigal
2. Líneas y puntos de otro tiempo (Sin Tiempo IV) (9’00”) / -rev. 2017- - Daniel Schachter
3. Residual I (7'23”) / 2017 - Daniel Quaranta
4. El sueño del GOUL (5’15”) / 2004 - Eleazar Garzón
5. Fútbol (5’02”) / 2017 - Alejandro Brianza
6. Quedate con el cambio (1’24’’) / 2017 - Jorge Variego
8. posdomingo 02.10.2016 (7'36'') / 2016 - Ana María Romano G.
9. Islas temporales – Asuntos del alma (a José Vicente Asuar) (9’41”) / 2017 - José Miguel Candela
RedASLA - The Latin American Network for Sonic Arts
OVERVIEW
RedASLA is the Latin-American Network for Sonic Arts, an organisation started in 1995 and aiming to disseminate worldwide sonic creativity and research from its members.
From RedASLA’s viewpoint, Sonic Art amalgamates any artistic activity focused on sound as the means for creative expression, while providing technology with a primary role in the creative process.
RedASLA embraces Sonic Arts from an open perspective, consciously aiming not to set boundaries or constraints on the variety and broadness of any sonic expression or aesthetic consideration from its members.
This double album is the Vth and VIth published CD since the Network started.
RedASLA OBJECTIVES
To incorporate new ideas and a diversity of working methodologies are among RedASLA’s primary objectives. More specifically RedASLA aims:
1) To consolidate spaces that foster collaboration and the exchange of ideas between artists who place sound at the centre of their methodology and creative thinking.
2) to fostering and promote worldwide Sonic Arts created by its Latin-American members and to showcase work from other Latin-American artists.
3) to establish institutional relationships and formal exchanges with other artistic associations with similar interests.
4) to organise meeting, concerts, seminars, recordings, publications and any other activity related to Sonic Arts in Latin-America.
5) to become a primary source of information for activities related to Sonic Arts on an international level and with particular reference to activities taking place in Latin-America.
6) to serve as a support centre and institution for artists in need of assistance and backing infrastructure.
CURATORIAL
The vast majority of pieces proposed for this cultural production can be divided into three types of works:
A first group of compositions that refer to everyday sounds and their sonic environment.
A second type of pieces with a high level of sonic abstraction which apply highly processed electronics to sonic materials, making them unrecognisable; or which make use of electronic sounds that have no connection to the environment.
Finally, there is a third group of works that combine the sounds of the environment with electronic sounds to create an interplay between the sounds of an "everyday" world and those of a "fictitious" one.
This last group shaped the curatorial line since it proposed a dialogue between the works carrying "everyday" sounds as opposed to the pieces that used a timbre palette far removed from the sounds of the environment. To explain it in another way, some works appeared to carry out a representation of "reality", while others projected their identity throughout the imaginary and the fictional.
Having said that, fiction is understood from the perspective of the first two groups. In the first one, "real" sounds project the author’s intentionality when constructing the sounds of its environment, while printing its subjectivity. On the other hand, "fiction" linked to electronic sounds can also be understood as a metamorphosis of the soundscape and it can even be seen as a representation of the unique imaginary of the artist.
The third group of pieces submitted to this call for works seems to negotiate everyday sound worlds and imaginary ones, taking to the liminal the theme of representation and including sound images that mostly come from inner worlds.
Otto Castro / Curator
