How, Yeats wondered, can we know the dancer from the dance? It’s a good line, and an even better question. This new piece from choreographer Emma Martin, composer Andrew Hamilton, five dancers and three musicians sets out to explore the relationship between the dancer and the dancehall: the tension between what happens inside the body in response to musical stimuli, and what society imposes from the outside by way of convention and control.
Dancehall begins with the music, and the music at the beginning is skeletal: a chord on an electronic keyboard, held until it pulses with unexpected undertones; a heartbeat from the drum; flashes of cello so brief you wonder if you’ve imagined them. A dancer whose ultra-slow-motion movements recall the controlled fluidity of tai chi. – Arminta Wallace, The Irish Times
‘music for people who like art’ in Paris
‘music for people who like art’ will be performed by the lauded Ensemble 2e2m in Paris this January.
The performance will take place at 7pm on Tuesday 19 January at AUDITORIUM MARCEL LANDOWSKI.
Further information about the performance is available HERE.
‘music for people who like art’ at LCMF 2016
London premiere with Oliver Coates at Kammer Klang
RIGHT AND WRONG – The Music of Andrew Hamilton
In 2014 Irish Composer Donal Sarsfield wrote the first extended analytical study of the music of Irish composer Andrew Hamilton. This article was published Tempo Volume 68 / Issue 269 / July 2014, pp 30-41.
It explores the aesthetic ideas that inform Hamilton’s music, which often have as much in common with the work of contemporary visual artists and writers as they do with that of other composers. It discusses the particular sense of humour underlying many of his pieces, as well as his music’s use of common and supposedly simple materials, which are put in the service of new and original aims.
Donal Sarsfield, the author of this recent article on Hamilton’s work, is an Irish composer who enjoys recording, transforming and organising sound. His PhD in Electroacoustic Composition, undertaken at the University of Manchester, investigated how a concentrated perspective on one particular sound source has the potential to develop a perceptual link between the listener, the work and the world in which we live.
You can read the article HERE – follow the link and click on the red pdf symbol.
“Dancehall” premieres at Dublin Theatre Festival
Dancehall, Andrew Hamilton’s recent collaboration with Irish choreographer Emma Martin, will premiere at Dublin Theatre Festival this Autumn.
In this hourlong performance, two artforms unite in an unconstrained bombastic poem – at once classical and hardcore, noble and reckless. It manifests the contagious and vital energy that is revealed through the union of dance and music, both having been created for one another.
Hamilton’s music for Dancehall will be performed by a trio from Ireland’s inimitable Crash Ensemble.
Performances will take place at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Trinity College, Dublin, from Thursday 8 October to Sunday 11 October.
For more information, including performance times and ticket sales, visit: https://www.dublintheatrefestival.com/Online/Dancehall
Hunt in the Forest of Ros – New Ross Piano Festival
A new work by Andrew Hamilton will be performed by Alexei Grynyuk at New Ross Piano Festival 2015. This new work, hunt in the forest of ros, for solo piano will be premiered at the closing concert of the New Ross Piano Festival on the afternoon of Sunday 27th September.
Further information about the event can be found HERE.
This new composition was inspired by the following image from The Ros Tapestry.
