David Bremner

Here are a few excerpts from my recent song-cycle of poetry by Billy Mills, Logical Fallacies. The performers are Andreea Banciu (viola) and Elizabeth Hilliard (soprano).

Manor Street

gate
walk
garden

snails
trike
blue

trough
float
stairs

string
cards
school

lodge
street
gate

This song

this song is not
the world is

this song is not
the world

(For Larry)

a poem
is always a poem

a moth
a moth

even
a stranger

caught
in a room

finding
no exit

in a park
by a river
in another city

not the one I was born in
not the one I live in now

a city at war
with itself

All texts are from Lares/Manes (Shearsman Books, 2009) © Billy Mills

Our previous collaboration, Loop Walks, a work of scored polyphonic poetry, is available from http://hardpressedpoetry.blogspot.ie/ and bealfestival@gmail.com

We’re planning to work on another project this year…

Interesting project here from the Association of Irish Composers, ‘Composers’ Commentaries’ a live discussion alongside the recording and score of a new work.

The subject in this one is my piece Gap Static, performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gavin Maloney. Interview by Dr. Peter Moran.

I’ve been playing lots of gamelan recently with the National Concert Hall ensemble Kyai Jati Roso. Looking forward to collaborating with UCD Gamelan and Gamelan Nua this year for a project exploring the combination of gamelan with pipe organ. This piece I wrote recently for the Happy Days festival fringe in Enniskillen has a definite gamelan influence, it’s a sort of text lancaran. Performance by myself (organ) and Elizabeth Hilliard (soprano).

The cover of the CD l’air du temps/the spirit of the times by myself and the piper Mark Redmond. The beautiful design is by Clare Lynch; it incorporates architectural motifs from Christ Church Cathedral Dublin, where the CD was recorded over four nights, attempting to dodge interruptions by city-centre traffic and seagulls.

Here is the first track, Amhrán na Leabhar. This type of arrangement is an attempt to add my own take on these self-sufficient melodies, not by ‘harmonising’ them, but by composing a new melody that complements the patterns of the original.

The CD is available from Tower Records, Claddagh Records, Christ Church Cathedral shop, or by emailing bealfestival@gmail.com

And here is a document explaining some of the aesthetic context and unusual techniques involved in the guarded tourist. It was written for a presentation I gave at the Music and/as Process conference in Canterbury, summer 2014.

A video of a performance by Elizabeth Hilliard of logic ballad #2: The guarded tourist makes the guide the test. It is a dramatic ballad built entirely from three-note phrases related to each other by permutational processes. This is intended to be the enaction of a constantly developing thought process.The text was assembled from a pool of 25 words:

across awake coast continue detonate eyes faded fear from hid if into latitude night paradise reefs since slowly story swung together turned underneath view you.

The basic structure is the following:

Caption
Setting the scene
First Action
Aria/Reflection
Second Action
Memory of Initial Scene

The background to this piece was my interest in improvised process music; more information on this can be found on the Compositions/Improvised Process Music page.