Hard Rain - Seachanges

The final concert of the season revisits some work that the ensemble has familiarity with whilst introducing (to Belfast audiences at least) a number of new works. HRSE Artistic Director Greg Caffrey has “drip fed” his latest offering for the group, A Terrible Beauty, to audiences over the six years of the ensemble’s existence, introducing each of the three movements as independent works as they emerged over the years. Indeed this work has expanded into an orchestral piece, lauded as a "recommended work" by illustrious composers Magnus Lindberg and Erkki-Sven-Tüür. This chamber version completes the Yeats trilogy. Perry Goldstein’s beautifully wrought reflection on Paul Klee’s eponymous painting Twittering Machine is also not new to our regular audience, but appears again this season as the players simply loved playing it in the last! We have a second outing for John Buckley’s new HRSE commission premiered earlier this year (another work with its origin in the visual arts). Ann Cleare’s intricate work, Inner for cello and piano, probes the very nature of sound itself in the most uncompromising way. A recent recipient of the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Prize, she is surely one of Ireland’s most pioneering composers. Raymond Deane’s highly individual Seachanges owes its inspiration partly to The Tempest and to preoccupations with death and metamorphosis. Due to the work’s inclusion on the Leaving Certificate Music syllabus, it may be one of the most known and studied pieces of Irish contemporary music.

Join us for a pre-concert talk in the McMordie Hall at 6.45 pm.

Twittering Machine (1997 Rev. 1998), Perry Goldstein (1952), flute, clarinet, violin, violoncello, piano & percussion

Three Mobiles After Alexander Calder (2019)*, John Buckley (1951), flute, clarinet, violin, violoncello & piano

Seachanges with Danse Macabre (1993 - 94), Raymond Deane (1953), piccolo (alt fl), piano, violin, violoncello & percussion

Inner (2009), Ann Cleare (1983), violoncello & piano

A Terrible Beauty II (2019) (Chamber Version), World Premiere, Greg Caffrey (1963), flute (picc.), clarinet (bs cl), piano, violin, violoncello & percussion

*Commissioned by Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble with funds from ACNI Small Grants Award