Ann Cleare's "eyam v (woven)" Premieres at RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra

by Ted Gordon on Feb. 14, 2017, 12:29 p.m.

Since 2009, Ann Cleare has been composing new works for contrabass wind instruments in a series of works entitled eyam. As Cleare writes, her eyam works involve "building sonic structures and language from the visual and acoustic architectures of these large instruments, animating the peculiarity of their rich spectrums and orchestrating such qualities into vibrant sonic sculptures through a variety of acoustic, orchestral, and electronic set ups." 

On February 14th, the fifth of these works—eyam v (woven)—premeires at the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, performed with soloists Richard Craig (contrabass flute) and Carol McGonnell (contrabass clarinet). Cleare recently spoke about her eyam series, named after the so-called "plague town" of Eyam in Derbyshire, with the Contemporary Music Centre in Ireland: 

Ann Cleare Featured in Symphony Magazine

by Ted Gordon on Feb. 5, 2013, 1:23 p.m.

PSNY Composer Ann Cleare has been featured on the cover of Symphony Magazine, published by the League of American Orchestras, in a feature article on Emerging Composers. Also mentioned in the article, written by NewMusicBox's Frank Oteri, are Timo Andres, Adrian Knight, Chris Cerrone, and Hannah Lash. 

The ELISION Ensemble and the Rté National Symphony Orchestra will premeire Ann's work for bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and orchestra, to another of that other, as well as phosphors (.of either), for orchestra, on February 12th at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland. ELISION will perform a version of to another of that other for solo instruments following this performance. On the same day, Elision performs Ann's Paranoid Oneiroid at the Kevin Barry Room at the National Concert Hall. And two days later, February 14th, Ann will present a lecture on her recent works at University College Cork's Department of Music.

In addition to this exciting performance activity in Ireland, Ann will also see her composition on magnetic fields published by PSNY. This work divides a large ensemble into three chamber groups, which Cleare describes as "two different kinetic whirlwinds, and a box of light." Using the concept of the magnetic field to spatially arrange these miniature ensembles, this work explores a metaphor of "current" through its communication in melody, with a continuo solo violin channeling this piece's electric energy. Listen to a sample here: 

Employing a similarly spatial metaphor to other works such as phosphors (.of either), On Magnetic Fields encounters the orchestra as segmented groups, each enacting a different characterization of the piece's overall structure, each seemingly containing its own compositional will. In both works, each "island" of instrumentalists combines to form an archipelago of intricacy, a sonic exploration of texture, timbre, and motion.