(Chiharu Shiota: Dialogues, New Art Gallery Walsall)
It has been an incredibly busy time over the past few months and I have neglected to post anything here in the past while. However, for those of you interested I’ve been extremely busy multitasking between teaching at Birmingham Conservatoire, writing new pieces, scoring films (The Inquiry), attending performances (notably my Horizons concert with the RTÉ NSO!), giving guest lectures at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and Royal Holloway, University of London and graduating from my PhD. (In this space of time I also turned thirty…) That’s all in the past though and we must look (and sing!) to the future.
This past weekend our Birmingham Conservatoire’s annual new music festival Frontiers kicked off in style and it continues over the next two weeks with incredible music from New York and Birmingham. Highlights include A stellar line up of US artists including Elliott Sharp, Carl Stone, Pauline Oliveros, Rhys Chatham, Warren Smith, Henry Hills, Object Collection, John O’Gallagher, my old teacher David Lang and we make a special feature of works by the recently deceased Robert Ashley. The festival also features work by many of our students as well as my dear colleagues Ed Bennett, Joe Cutler, Andrew Hamilton, Howard Skempton and Michael Wolters. My own work features with performances by Vicky Bonham on 30 March (Thirteen Minutes of Music on the Subject of the Transformation of things), Howard Skempton on 4 April (One Minute & Thirty Seconds of Music for Howard Skempton) and myself performing Thirty Minutes of Music on the Subject of Soap Operas again on 4 April. My work will also feature in the second part of the festival in June in a very special event (More details to follow!)
From this festival I travel to London to hear Noszferatu perform Five Minutes of Music on the Subject of Noszferatu alongside works by my colleagues at Birmingham Conservatoire on 9 April as part of the Wednesdays at the Forge series. The following week I travel to Dublin to hear the wonderful Crash Ensemble performing Fourteen Minutes of Music on the Subject of Greeting Cards on 17 April at the Project Arts Centre.
I have a small respite before travelling to Stockholm in Sweden to undertake a residency at EMS at the beginning of May which is immediately followed by a trip to Izmir in turkey to work with students from across Europe on the IICS. From here I return to teaching at Birmingham Conservatoire before heading back to Dublin to hear Matthew Schellhorn performing Thirteen Minutes of Music on the Subject of the Transformation of things on 28 May at the National Concert Hall.
June and July are mostly concerned with realising a fantastic project with the Swedish group Ensemble KROCK and writing. But for now, that should keep me going!
SEÁN CLANCY 