As promised, here is another in the series of arrangements of J.S. Bach’s chorale prelude ‘Ich Ruf’ Zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ’ that we commissioned for our Ergodos Festival MMX. Click below to hear Garrett Sholdice’s transcription for string trio, performed live at the Project Arts Centre, April 2010, by Ioana Petcu-Colan (violin), Cora Venus Lunny (viola) and Kate Ellis (cello).

For other versions of ‘Ich Ruf’ Zu Dir’, please visit our archive.

In October 2009, Ergodos presented Smyth/Marshall/Sanders in the National Concert Hall, Dublin. Featuring pianist Paul G. Smyth (“Ireland’s darkest jewel” – The Journal of Music in Ireland), London-based cellist Hannah Marshall (Trio of Uncertainty) and Birmingham’s Mark Sanders (Vandermark/Guy/Sanders Trio) on drum kit/percussion, the group provided the audience with a near-continuous 60-minute immersion in subtle, incisive and visceral free improvisation. You can experience two excerpts from the show below.

Improvisation 1

Improvisation 4

Back in the early days of Ergodos, there was a CD-R release of Benedict Schlepper-Connolly performing his own work, To Find Out the Dawn Hour. Scored for nineteen violins, it was recorded on a Sunday afternoon in an unfurnished apartment in South County Dublin. Only fifty copies were printed, the last of which has just been rediscovered in a pile of old books. Here it is in all of its rough beauty.

If the above audio player doesn’t work for you, click here to listen.

For the Ergodos Festival MMX, we asked a number of composers to transcribe or re-arrange Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale harmonisation of ‘Ich Ruf’ zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ’. This is Jonathan Nangle’s piano trio arrangement; we will post the others in due course.

In December 2008, Trio Scordatura played a concert of music from Ireland at Amsterdam’s De Badcuyp. Here is Alfrun Schmid’s performance of Invocation from that concert, an intense, haunting work by Enda Bates. The text is from the Carmina Gadelica, a collection of Scotish folksongs, prayers and charms recorded by Alexander Carmichael between 1855 and 1910.

Shakuhachi player Joseph Browning playing Oshu Saji (trad. Japanese) at the National Concert Hall, Dublin as part of Ergodos Festival 2009. In his introduction, he says, ‘This is an old Japanese piece… It’s shaped like three valleys, it starts very low, goes very high and goes low. So it looks like hills and valleys. And, there’s lots of undulating vibrato in the hills and valleys, which is supposed to sound like shomyo, Japanese Buddhist chant… perhaps.’