In the culmination of a year’s work as part of the Choral Sketches career development programme, composers David Bremner, Kerry Hagan, & Peter Moran from the Contemporary Music Centre had their final pieces performed for audiences at New Music Dublin 2022.
Throughout 2021 and into 2022, these three selected composers from the Contemporary Music Centre received mentoring from composer and singer Eoghan Desmond, workshopping their pieces with Guest Director Nils Schweckendiek in November 2021, and working with the singers of Chamber Choir Ireland to bring their unique skills and style to the medium of choral music
Dublin-based composer David Bremner created a piece entitled archeus terrae which employs only phonemes—”an exploration of vocal spectralism, with a preoccupation with textures that are nasal, bright and unstable.” Composer and researcher Kerry Hagan set a poem by Carol Sandburg, Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio in a piece which captures the “veneer of manic jollity while underneath lies an ugliness of poverty, seediness and racism” in a 1920s industrial American city. Peter Moran, composer and director of a number of Javanese gamelan orchestras in Dublin, drew on the Mantra “Om Shri Gurave Swaha”, calling upon the listener’s innermost wisdom and creating a meditative atmosphere for audiences at New Music Dublin.
Choral Sketches is delivered in partnership with the Contemporary Music Centre.
View Photos from Choral Sketches at New Music Dublin 2022.
Listen to the the Contemporary Music Centres’ Amplify podcast episode, featuring a selection of interviews with participating composers in the Choral Sketches programme.