RESPONSES
Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin
18 September 2014
Photo: Robyson Vilaronga
Responses is the second of our two concerts in the Tiger Dublin Fringe 2014 at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios. In this specially devised programme four Dublin composers––Piaras Hoban, Gráinne Mulvey, Fergal Dowling and Rob Canning––collaborated to create a common response to Ablinger's 3 Places Dublin in a performance for five wind musicians, interactive electronics and mobile audience distributed throughout the four levels of the Temple Bar Gallery & Studios Atrium space. The concert closes with a new work by Rob Canning using specially devised mobile transmitters attached to the instrumentalists that allow them to leave the building and transmit their performance back into the venue while exploring the urban soundscape around Dublin City centre.
Piaras Hoban, earth mutter : pray : no sense, only fuck (in two parts: for fixed media; and two trumpets)
Gráinne Mulvey, Resounding Waves (for flute, clarinet, horn and two trumpets)
Fergal Dowling, Three Reconstructions (for five instruments, computer and reverberant space)
Rob Canning, Responses (for ambulatory ensemble, bi-directional network streams, live electronics, improvisers)
Performers: Joe O'Farrell (flute), Paul Roe (clarinet), Kevin O'Hara (horn), Eoghan Cooke (trumpet), Shane Clear (trumpet), Gráinne Mulvey (live electronics), Fergal Dowling (live electronics), Rob Canning (live electronics)
The concert begins with Piaras Hoban's earth mutter : pray : no sense, only fuck (for fixed media and two trumpets) with concert-goers downloading and listening to the first half of Hoban's composition as they travel to the venue. As they enter Temple Bar Gallery & Studio's atrium space they are greeted by the fanfare-like second part for two trumpets, located on the first gallery level.
The listeners continue to be drawn up through the building as they follow the unfolding of Gráinne Mulvey's detailed colour study, Resounding Waves (for flute, clarinet, horn and two trumpets). With the audience now disposed throughout all floor levels surrounding the atrium void, they experience the 3D-like, stacked vortex of Fergal Dowling's Three Reconstructions (for five instruments, computer and reverberant space) performed with instrumentalists and loudspeakers on all four levels of the atrium.
As the last notes hang, suspended in the space, the audience spontaneously descend the stairs and exit the building, following the players, pied piper fashion, on Rob Canning's Responses (for ambulatory ensemble, bi-directional network streams, live electronics, improvisers) and parade around Temple Bar. This commission uses specially devised mobile transmitters attached to the instrumentalists that allow them to leave the building and transmit their performance back into the venue while exploring the urban soundscape around Dublin City centre. As the audience and players return to the TBG&S atrium, the final notes of Canning's Responses are sounded while the continuing overhanging notes of Dowling's Three Reconstructions are still floating through the space.
This programme was an extraordinary collaboration of composers and players who worked collectively to choreograph a genuinely integrated programme, where the whole concert really is greater than the sum of the parts. It's unusual to be able to work in this way, where composers take the time to coordinate to create something larger. This took a lot of planning and coordination both at the composition and the performance stages, and the level of collaboration shows, not just in how well the pieces fit together in a larger overall musical programme, but also in how each pieces responds so uniquely to the building and its environment to create a spatial choreography. (Fergal Dowling)
Fergal Dowling performs, Three Reconstructions (for five instruments, computer and reverberant space)
Joe O'Farrell performing Gráinne Mulvey's, Resounding Waves (for flute, clarinet, horn and two trumpets)
Audience viewing performers ascending through atrium at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios
Audience at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios
Piaras Hoban's, earth mutter : pray : no sense, only fuck , Eoghan Cooke (trumpet), Shane Clear (trumpet)
Rob Canning's mobile transmitters for Responses
Rob Canning's Responses (for ambulatory ensemble, bi-directional network streams, live electronics, improvisers)
Audience members follow the musicians through Temple Bar s during Rob Canning's Responses
Places and Responses was supported by Dublin City Council, Austrian Embassy Dublin, Contemporary Music Centre Dublin, Irish Architecture Foundation and Tiger Dublin Fringe
