Béal is putting on two events as part of Love:Live Music this year. This is our National Music Day full of free musical events.

Hidden Memories

At 1.15 in the Centre for Contemporary Practices, soprano Elizabeth Hilliard and composer Gráinne Mulvey present a concert of vocal and electronic works.

Works include The Gift of Freedom and The Seafarer (first heard at Béal 2012) – both written for Elizabeth Hilliard’s voice and tape. The tape part for each is constructed using samples from Elizabeth’s voice. Electronic works include Hidden Memories, inspired by a painting by artist Ursula Meehan.

Experience a beautiful concert, in the comfort of this Arts Centre in the centre of town.

L’Air du Temps/The Spirit of the Times

At 6.30 pm in Christ Church Cathedral, David Bremner (organ, composer) and Mark Redmond (uilleann pipes) present a half-hour set entitled L’Air du Temps/The Spirit of the Times, the fruit of a year-long collaboration between the Cathedral’s Assistant Organist, David Bremner, and renowned uilleann-piper Mark Redmond.

The project is all about the connections between the performance styles from two very distinct traditions: traditional Irish slow airs as played on the pipes, and the music of the French Baroque era on the organ. These will be explored in the wonderfully resonant space of the Cathedral, allowing the sounds of these instruments
to intertwine.

These distinct styles in fact share many things; unconstrained rhythmic freedom, expressive richness of ornamentation, and the two instruments together have a unique blend:- the rawness of the pipes adds a new dimension to the Classical associations of the organ, and Bremner has devised a raft of unconventional playing techniques in response to Redmond’s style of playing.

The set will be an atmospheric re-imagining of Eighteenth century Ireland and France, a time of upheaval and revolutionary ferment, and a fertile time of cross-influences.

It conjures a world where the style of the French baroque and the Irish slow air intermingle, where gentlemen pipers such as Lord Edward Fitzgerald recreated in Ireland the fêtes galantes of the French grand siècle. Where historical evidence is patchy Bremner has composed new pieces that invent links that may or may not have actually existed. We see traditional music as part of a common Europe-wide culture, where the barriers between high art and low were flexible.

The piece will be a single, gradual musical journey in which short solos and duos are interweaved; a mixture of existing pieces, arrangements and original compositions by Bremner. The new material is in an original contemporary idiom, a quirky and authentic response to its multiple influences. This is a rare chance to hear the wonderful sound of these instruments with so much in common musically, but associated with very different worlds.

This project was funded by the Arts Council Deis Award.

21 June, 1.15 pm CFCP, 15 Upper Pembroke Street, Hidden Memories Elizabeth Hilliard performs Gráinne Mulvey vocal and electronic works

21 June, 6.30 pm, Christ Church Cathedral Dublin, L’Air du Temps/The Spirit of the Times David Bremner and Mark Redmond perform traditional slow airs, organ music by Couperin and de Grigny, arrangements and compositions by Bremner