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Kathy Hinde’s work grows from a partnership between nature and technology expressed through audio-visual installations and performances that combine sound, sculpture, image and light. Drawing on inspiration from behaviours and phenomena found in the natural world, she creates work that is generative; that evolves; that can be different each time it is experienced. Kathy aims to create work that gives rise to a poetic and reflective experience that enriches an appreciation of the everyday, inviting a heightened awareness of the world around us.

Kathy frequently works in collaboration with other practitioners and scientists and often actively involves the audience in the creative process. She has created light and sound installations in public spaces, including urban streets, woodlands and forests.

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This piece evolves from a set of glass and feedback instruments built specially for the ensemble by Kathy Hinde.

Two pairs of glass vessels balance bodies of water. Using a mechanical system, the players raise the glasses up and down, causing them to fill or empty in turn - and so the water levels change the tones of audio feedback.

The ensemble are invited to balance and unbalance both the vessels of water and the delicate threshold of feedback. Along with these collaborative 'acts of balancing and unbalancing' the ensemble respond with their acoustic instruments.

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Anna Murray is a mixed-media composer and artist from Ireland. She has a particular interest in language and text-based composition, the creation of sound spaces, as well as graphic and open scores combined with live electronics. Her current work revolves around an examination of music and meaning, particularly focussed on a study of Japanese Noh theatre, which she studied in Tokyo.

Recent work includes the album of music for piano and electronics, The moon sets and birds cry / 月は落ち、鳥が鳴いて; a setting of Emily Dickinson's envelope poems titled my little Force explodes; and Crosstalk, part of Crash Ensemble's Reactions series.

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Aioi: leaves laden with words is based on the Japanese Noh play Takasago, the imagery of the pine and the space between  worlds. The pine is a symbol of longevity and for liminality, for the rocking back and forth between the imagined and the real.

The score for Aioi: leaves laden with words is a set of 6 unique paintings, one for each performer - versions of the pine tree found at the back of the Noh stage. The performers improvise in response to their painting, to the story of Takasago, and the sound of wind in the pines.

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Founded in 2008, QME is a unique Irish group dedicated to music that explores perception and reflection through spiritually and physically quiet music. “The very notion of ‘quiet music’ is something of a revolutionary act”, said the UK Independent in 2015 and described QME’s music as exerting “a mesmeric power”. QME enmeshes natural sound with performed sound; the visual with the sonic: its performances invite us into an extraordinary ‘listening space’ that is both deep and moving.

The group consists of some of the top solo and chamber performers in the country: John Godfrey, founder/director/electric guitar; Seán Mac Erlaine, clarinets/saxes; Roddy O'Keefe, trombone; Ilse De Ziah, cello; Dan Bodwell, double bass; Alexis Nealon, sound engineer.

QME has premiered commissioned and other new works from world-renowned composers such as Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, David Toop, Jennifer Walshe, Mark Applebaum, Christopher Fox, Martin Iddon, Michael Pisaro and others. At its launch festival in 2008, QME premiered 5 new works and appeared alongside world-renowned composer/performers Pauline Oliveros and David Toop.

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Francis Heery (b.1980) is a composer and sound artist. His music is inspired by science-fiction, occultism and animal aesthetics. He is an accomplished improvisor and performs with a setup integrating Max/MSP with acoustic instruments and modular synths. He specializes in long-form, site-specific performances in public spaces.

His instrumental works have been performed by the RTE Symphony Orchestra, the Crash Ensemble, the Quiet Music Ensemble, the Talujon Percussion Ensemble and by soloists including Carin Levine, Pascal Galois and Izumi Kimura.

He has received funding awards from the Arts Council of Ireland as well as commissions from Galway County and City Councils, the Music Current Festival, the Berlin Natural History Museum, and the Berlin International Sound Art Festival.

He produces experimental electronica under the name The Cube of Unknowing, with four albums released on Fort Evil Fruit.

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Moon Phases is a spectral drone composition, composed in response to W.B. Yeats’ fascinating occult work A Vision. The work is comprised of 28 dynamically interacting drones, programed in Max/MSP that emerge and recede one after the other. It was originally composed as a long-form live sound installation, which was performed by the composer at Thoor Ballylee for Culture Night 2018.

In 2022 a new expanded version was composed especially for the Quiet Music Ensemble. This new version entailed reworking the spectral character of the original drones and writing an improvisational score for the ensemble. The score includes a set of 28 cards for each performer, to help guide their improvisation. It also includes references to the particular lunar phase in Yeats’ system that corresponds to the performance date.

Moon Phases 2022 will be performed by the QME at the Solstice Arts Center Navan on 2nd July 2022.

Click here for an analysis of the Moon Phases drone.

Click here for the schema of the Max patch

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A spectral composition to accompany W.B. Yeats' occult work A Vision.

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Quiet Music Ensemble brings three world premieres to Solstice Arts Centre in July, with music by renowned Sound Artist Kathy Hinde and Irish composers Francis Heery and Anna Murray.

Drawing respectively on the beautiful and subtle sonorities of especially created new instruments, the poetry of Yeats and on Japanese Noh theatre, the pieces were created especially for QME, responding to the ensemble’s unique, meditative, mesmeric music.

This event is part of the learning & engagement programme which accompanies the exhibition ‘I am sitting in a Room’. It is supported by Arts Council Ireland.

Programme:

Heery – Moon Phases 2022

Murray – Aioi: leaves laden with words

Hinde – Acts of Balancing and Unbalancing

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Quiet Music Ensemble returns to Navan to present a concert of world premieres by Francis Heery, Anna Murray and Kathy Hinde. This event is part of the learning & engagement programme which...

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Quiet Music Ensemble is a Cork-based Experimental Music group led by composer and performer John Godfrey.

The word 'quiet' in its name is intended to conjure both the sense of hushed and of peaceful; its music is a restrained meditation on sound itself. The group consists of some of the top solo and chamber performers in the country: John Godfrey, founder/director/electric guitar; Seán Mac Erlaine, clarinets/saxes; Roddy O'Keefe, trombone; Ilse De Ziah, cello; Dan Bodwell, double bass; Alexis Nealon, sound engineer.

It draws its repertoire from diverse artistic sources, including composers of music, sound artists and visual artists, and specialises in improvisation, guided or free. It performs in unconventional spaces and contexts, and specialises in extended performances.

At Solstice, QME will present a programme of world premiere works by artists Kathy Hinde, Anna Murray and Francis Heery.

This event is part of the learning & engagement programme which accompanies the exhibition 'I am sitting in a Room'.

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Solstice Arts Centre | Quiet Music Ensemble

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Quiet Music Ensemble is a Cork-based Experimental Music group led by composer and performer John Godfrey. The word 'quiet' in its name is intended to conjure both the sense of hushed and of peaceful; its music is a restrained meditation on sound itself.