MATA kicks off the second season of its bi-monthly series Interval with a program of music by the radical and enigmatic South Dublin collective Grúpat. Curated by Irish vocalist and composer Jennifer Walshe, Grúpat’s greatest champion, Interval 2.1 features the collective’s eclectic blend of textural and playful music, performed by Ms. Walshe and up-and-coming New York interdisciplinary group Object Collection.
PROGRAM INFO
The Grúpat Collective, comprised mainly of artists living in the South Dublin County Council area of Ireland, is a political and artistic group based on the ideas of the Situationists, graffiti artists, direct action networks, and others, which they called “The Avant Gardaí.” Grúpat works primarily in sound, with work ranging from strictly-notated compositions for classic ensembles to graphic scores, sonic sculptures, sound installations and interventions in both the public and private sphere. These facts sometimes make it difficult to determine exactly who or what is in Grúpat. Notable members, however, include Bulletin M, The Parks Service, Detleva Verens, Ukeoirn O’Connor, Flor Hartigan and O’Brien Industries. This sub-set of Grúpat often exhibit under the name “6by4” a reference to the Parisian composers known as “Les Six” and the postcode Dublin 24, in which they all reside.
Vocalist and composer Jennifer Walshe has been working closely with members of Grúpat as a commissioner and curator since their inception. She has commissioned a number of works for solo voice which she has premiered to critical acclaim at concerts in the Kilkenny Arts Festival (Ireland), the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), Tmu-na Theatre (Israel) and Frau Musica Nova (Germany). Grúpat members have exploited Walshe’s commitment to non-traditional musical notation by writing pieces for her voice which incorporate photographs of the landscape around Tallaght, embroidered pictures from the Tallaght Echo and diagrams of the sky over South Dublin County into their scores. These unusual notational methods have garnered much interest for Grúpat members’ work - Three Songs by Ukeoirn O’Connor, Scintillia Studies by Detleva Verens and Whives by Flor Hartigan were exhibited in the Museum of Arts and Design, New York in November 2007.
For her performance of Grúpat works during Interval 2.1, Walshe will be joined in by members of Object Collection. Founded in 2004 by multidisciplinary artist Kara Feely and composer/instrumentalist Travis Just, Object Collection is a collaborative theater-music performance group solidly rooted in the experimental tradition. Their dedication to new artistic work in hybrid forms, including the use of found sound, is perfectly suited to the work of Grúpat artists and their common aesthetic.
Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and Kevin Volans in Dublin. She graduated from Northwestern University, Chicago, with a doctoral degree in composition in 2002. While at Northwestern, her chief teachers were Amnon Wolman and Michael Pisaro. In 2003-04 she was a fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and from 2004-05 she lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. From 2006 to 2008 she is the composer-in-residence for the In Context 3 project in South Dublin. In 2007 she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York.
Her works have been performed throughout Europe, the US, and Canada by groups such as Alter Ego, Ensemble Récherche, Ensemble Resonanz, Apartment House, Ensemble Intégrales, Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart, the Crash Ensemble, ensemble ascolta, Champ d’Action, the Rilke Ensemble, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble, the Bozzini Quartet, Concorde, Ensemble Musica Nova, Ensemble Chronophonie, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Wind Quintet, the Hebrides Ensemble, Psappha, and Q-02 among others. She has received commissions from RTÉ, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Sudwest Rundfunk (SWR), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Musik der Jahrhundert, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Dresdener Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik, Wien Modern, the Dresden Semper Oper, ZKM (Karlsruhe), the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, the Project Arts Centre and the National Concert Hall, Ireland, as well as commission awards from the New Music Scheme of the Arts Council of Ireland and the Scottish Arts Council.
From 2003-04, she was composer-in-residence at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork. In 2000 she won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, and received first prize in the SCI/ASCAP 2002 Commission Competition. In July 2002 she returned to Darmstadt to lecture in composition at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Music. Her works moving in/love songs/city front garden with old men and been in a room and a room and a room and a room were shortlisted for the 2002 and 2003 Gaudeamus Foundation compositions respectively.
In addition to her activities as a composer, Jennifer Walshe frequently performs as a vocalist, specialising in extended techniques. Many of her recent compositions were commissioned for her voice in conjunction with other instruments. She is also active as an improviser, performing regularly with musicians in Chicago and Europe. Forthcoming projects include a portrait concert in Parma, Italy, with Alter Ego, solo performances in Chicago, Belgium and Belgrade, and commissions for the 2006 ISCM World New Music Days and 2007 Maerzmusik festivals. She is currently living in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm.
BIOGRAPHIES
Grúpat collective
“So what is sound? Is it stillness? Does it shock flesh, the drums, the mind squealing? Is it the resolution or the tension? The silence or the not silent? So we sit or stand and even to hear the wildest anti-musical noise or nothing—it is still a creature in a jar. We want to free the creature. This is the point of everything you’ve heard before. The point, the sharpness of it, the moment where the idea takes shape and enters the flesh, drawing blood, opening bodies to air, not a penetration but a commingling, an embrasure, a knitting together, spillage and contamination—to set the creature free. Sound is the creature. Sound is a thing with feathers.” — Grúpat
For individual Grúpat Composer bios, please visit www.matafestival.org/interval/?p=31
Object Collection was founded in 2004 by director/writer/designer Kara Feely and composer/instrumentalist Travis Just as a collaborative theater-music performance group solidly rooted in the experimental tradition. Dedicated to new artistic work in hybrid forms, Object Collection constructs performances using a unique palette of live sound, composed music, and found text. Based in New York City, the group presents collaborative projects and curated series both at home and abroad using an expanding network of local and international affiliated artists.
