ICC10, Day 1 – review

Gertrude Stein once said, “the music comes out of the land” — what happens to the music once it’s out, however, very much depends on the people who populate that land. For ten years the Irish Composers Collective has been working to not only ensure that new Irish music has an outlet, but that its members and affiliates have a sustainable support system and a thriving community of like-minded enthusiasts. With Arts Council funding, over two days and eight concerts, all held in the Project Arts Centre’s Space Upstairs, ICC10 sought to provide a “concentrated whiff” of what the organisation is all about.

Founded as the Young Composers’ Collective by Dave Flynn (changing its name to its current “less ageist” incarnation in 2008), in its lifetime, the ICC has been involved with over 130 composers, through more than 100 concerts and 500 world premieres. It prides itself on the democratic nature of its operations, with an emphasis on collective opinion, anybody being eligible to join, and its programmes being selected entirely randomly.

Such diversity is readily apparent in the festival line-up, with two solo pianists, various ensembles, a jazz group, and the Dublin Laptop Orchestra comprising the acts in store. Kicking off neatly with the performer who gave the ICC’s first concert, David Adams plays to a fairly scattered but rapt lunchtime audience. Introductions are given by ICC Chair, Kirkos Ensemble member, and composer Sebastian Adams, who makes a truly charming, endearing host (at one point literally shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre upon forgetting his health and safety duties).

Adams moves deftly through the pieces, ranging from a baroque Tori Amos-style two-hander on piano and adjacent harpsichord, to a minimalist mish-mash redolent of Philip Glass’s solo piano works and Steve Reich’s phasing techniques, using pre-recorded piano with Adams’ prepared live piano. One can’t help but feel this first concert lacks depth, however, amounting to little more than a series of incidental diversions. Only Breffni O’Byrne’s Toghair and ICC founder Dave Flynn’s 12-Tone B-A-C-H (a well-intentioned, but ultimately confused, overly simple take on Schoenberg’s dodecaphony) give serious food for thought.

The festival continues in much the same vein at Kirkos Ensemble’s concert, with repetition, minimalism, and an emphasis on “pure sound” and the construction of material as merely a medium of effects featuring heavily. Some more light and shade is provided by Siobhra Quinlan’s arresting The Shaman, in which the composer sings a love song of sorts to an unidentified mystical figure, cutting a kind of creepy reverse Nicola Roberts vibe while intoning “When I hear the beat of his drum…”. Jenn Kirby’s welcome addition of indeterminacy in One to N, written in mobile form, introduces a music whose end cannot be foreseen in the course of its production — and, indeed, the uncertainty of whether it has in fact ended at several stages. In this penultimate piece we get to see all that the ICC holds dear: inventive, daring, and exciting new music.

With RTÉ’s string quartet in residence, the Romanian ConTempo (consisting of two married couples — the “secret to their success” — led by cellist and funnyman Adrian Mantu), the programme once again veers towards a misplaced positivism, with an exercise-like quality to most of the pieces. Wilful anachronism, too, rears its head, forgivably in Sebastian Adams’ highly accomplished and succinct String Quartet No. 1, in the style of Bartók. Rather less forgivably so in Eoghan Desmond’s Flights of Fancie, which doesn’t so much welcome irrelevance, as rush towards it, arms open, ending up being nothing more than an in-joke laden parlour game in the process. It is Stephen O’Brien, ICC Secretary, who surreptitiously steals the show, with an intriguingly obtuse piece, apparently mimicking a somewhat sentient radio changing stations.

Day 1 draws to a close with the eminently adroit Rhombus Quintet, a jazz ensemble of two saxophones, double bass, drums and soprano. Highlights include a section of the composition-by-committee Synergy—Colour-Sound-Space, wherein the audience hold up fragments of sheet music, which the saxophonists and singer pick and choose from in a seamless continuum. The movement amongst the stalls of that same trio adds to the palpable feeling of the room collectively letting its hair down.

Jazz and classical music have a mixed past. Some theorists accuse the former of masquerading as a rebellious, innovative art form, when in fact it is as formulaic and conformative as the most banal pop; its perception as going against symmetrical, conventional forms of rhythm, harmony and melody being merely illusory, encouraging anoesis in its listeners. Others view it as a righteous reappropriation of classical technique to reflect the dynamic, kaleidoscopic nature of modern society and existence, the opening clarinet glissando of Rhapsody in Blue being their clarion call. Whichever side of the debate one might take, the Rhombus Quintet acted as a welcome respite. We all need a bit of a bop every now and then, right?

For more ICC10, check out our coverage of Day 2.

Find out more about the Irish Composers Collective on their website. On December 18, the Irish Composers Collective will present seven new works written for double-bass performed by Malachy Robinson in the National Concert Hall. Tickets €10 (concession €5).

2 thoughts on “ICC10, Day 1 – review

  1. Just noticed the reference to my piece ’12 Tone B-A-C-H”.

    I appreciate the mention, however I thought I should clarify that I detest Schoenberg, dodecaphony and all the serialism that sprang from it, so the work is not at all a ‘well-intentioned…take on Schoenberg’s dodecaphony” as the reviewer suggests!

    The use of a 12 Tone row as the ground bass is done ironically and the rest of the material in the work was composed intuitively.

    I don’t see how anyone in their right mind could consider it an ‘overly simple’ piece of music in this context. Of course it might seem ‘simple’ compared to any truly dodecaphonic work, but that’s the point of the piece I guess, dodecaphonic works are generally far too mathematically complex for their own good!

    If my work seemed “overly simple” and “confused” to the reviewer perhaps it’s because the reviewer was fooled into thinking the piece was meant to be a serious piece of serialism!

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