Abstract
In 2024 I was awarded an Ireland Arts Council Music Commission Award to commission Dr Xenia Pestova Bennett to compose BAILE ("Home" in Irish), a new work for amplified clavichord, toy piano, viola da gamba, electronics, and recorded (our) voices reflecting on the universal themes of home, migration, and (be)longing. The piece has three movements for live performance & tape:
1. Nests
2. Circles
3. Ghosts
"Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it’s not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visit…" (Hugo Hamilton, The Speckled People)
We performed the world premiere at the Belltable on March 23 as part of the 2025 Limerick Early Music Festival on a concert programme I curated titled "Still, She Rises!" featuring period instruments and new music by contemporary female composers from around the world.
Future performances are scheduled for Belfast (2026), and an audio recording is planned to include the piece on my forthcoming album "Apricity" featuring contemporary music for solo & collaborative harpsichord.
1. Nests
2. Circles
3. Ghosts
"Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it’s not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visit…" (Hugo Hamilton, The Speckled People)
We performed the world premiere at the Belltable on March 23 as part of the 2025 Limerick Early Music Festival on a concert programme I curated titled "Still, She Rises!" featuring period instruments and new music by contemporary female composers from around the world.
Future performances are scheduled for Belfast (2026), and an audio recording is planned to include the piece on my forthcoming album "Apricity" featuring contemporary music for solo & collaborative harpsichord.
| Original language | English (Ireland) |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2025 |
Keywords
- identity
- belonging
- chamber music
- contemporary music
- composition
- new music
- clavichord
- toy piano
- viola da gamba
- experimental
- extended techniques
- female composers