Barry meets Beethoven

The National Chamber Choir team up with Crash Ensemble for a celebration of the work of internationally renowned Irish composer Gerald Barry at the Hugh Lane Gallery on Thur 21 Oct, 7pm. The programme features the premiere of a new commission entitled Schott and Sons, Mainz, using text from Emily Anderson’s The Letters of Beethoven published in 1961, and also includes Beethoven, Barry’s setting of Beethoven’s sole surviving love letters to a mysterious ‘immortal beloved’. Soloist is British bass Stephen Richardson. www.nationalchamberchoir.com www.crashensemble.com

Feldman Festival

The music of American composer Morton Feldman takes centre stage at IMMA on Sun 30 May as part of the current exhibition Vertical Thoughts: Morton Feldman and the Visual Arts. In their first ever collaboration, Crash Ensemble and the National Chamber Choir perform Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, a tribute to his close friend the artist Mark Rothko. Feldman described the piece thus: ‘Rothko's imagery goes right to the edge of his canvas, and I wanted the same effect with the music… the sound is closer, more physically with you than in a concert hall.’ Crash also join forces with actors Barry McGovern and Owen Roe in a rare performance of Words and Music, Samuel Beckett’s 1961 radio play which was scored by Feldman in 1985. www.crashensemble.com

Crash @ the Beckett

Crash Ensemble are at the Samuel Beckett Theatre TCD on Fri 5 March with the fifth in their series of annual Free State concerts. The focus this time is on new music from upcoming Irish composers, ranging from solo electro-acoustic works to full ensemble pieces. Highlight is a new specially-commissioned piece by Ed Bennett, as well as works by Ann Cleare, who has just been shortlisted for Amsterdam’s prestigious Gaudeamus Prize, previous Gaudeamus shortlisters Enda Bates and David Fennessy, Grainne Mulvey, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, and Scott McLaughlin, whose Marionettes incorporates a specially-imported Moog Piano Bar. www.crashensemble.com

Crash @ the Beckett

Double Portrait is the latest concert from internationally acclaimed contemporary music collective Crash Ensemble, showcasing the music of composers David Lang and Louis Andriessen at the Samuel Beckett Theatre on Fri 5 June. Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for The Little Match Girl Passion, David Lang is co-founder of New York’s legendary Bang on a Can. Crash will perform his Forced March (a Crash commission) and Cheating Lying Stealing, alongside the work of hugely influential Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, including the exuberant free-form Workers’ Union, scored for ‘any loud-sounding group of instruments’. Expect lots of high-octane sounds in this incisive double bill. www.crashensemble.com