2012 is here, and for Ergodos it is starting off with another excellent new concert.

On January 31st, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra will perform a programme of works curated by Ergodos co-director and composer Garrett Sholdice. Conducted by Gavin Maloney, the concert will take place at the National Concert Hall at 1:05pm.

Featured in the programme of this free concert are two world premieres – “Fall and Disappear” written by Sholdice and “Last Pictures” written by Ergodos co-director Benedict Schlepper-Connolly. Other composers on the bill include Feldman, Bach and Tenney.

The concert is one of the Horizons Contemporary Music Series, hosted regularly by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. Tickets available from the National Concert Hall. Full programme and notes for the January 31st concert are available here.

Garrett Sholdice’s Sonate was first released by Ergodos on our album Star earlier this year. It has now been selected to appear on The Contemporary Music Centre’s 10th compliation volume of Contemporary Music in Ireland. Garrett is interviewed on his experience with the piece here and the album can be purchased from the Contemporary Music Centre here.

We’re back in the studio thanks to the Music Network Ireland, to record a release of our upcoming performance I Call to You – a collection of new works and arrangements of Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale prelude, Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, I Call to You.

We start recording this time next week for the release with musicians Cliodhna Ryan (violin), William Butt (cello), Jonathan Sage (clarinet) and Michael McHale (piano).

Composers of the Programme are of the current cutting-edge in Irish composition: Jonathan Nangle, Simon O’Connor, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice.

Recording concludes on Thursday, November 24th where we move to Castalia Hall in Ballytobin, Callan, Kilkenny for a performance of I Call to You as part of the Music in Kilkenny concert series.

Tickets are available from Susan Proud on 056 77 61 49 7, or on proudmus@eircom.net.

Full Ergodos Release will be available in early 2012.

See you in Kilkenny!

One does not need to invent, just to intervene.

This coming Friday, November 4th, Ergodos will present Intervention, the Autumn edition of our quarterly series at the Lab for Electronic and Performing Arts (LEAP) in Berlin.

Friday’s Ergodos production will feature two performances across the evening: Dublin-based percussionist-composer Dennis Cassidy and Berlin/NYC vocal duo Tryst.

We wish to celebrate the creative act of intervening on existing material to create something new and novel. An inherently performative concept, ‘intervention’ is perhaps now more than ever a defining metaphor in performance practice.

For more information on this FREE event and to reserve your tickets, head over to LEAP

See you there.

Ergodos | All the Ends of the Earth | Issue @ 110 Livingston, Brooklyn, New York | Thursday, October 6th | 7PM | €15/10

Ergodos Records has been back in the studio preparing its next release, Revelavit by Linda Buckley, featuring Michelle O’Rourke on vocals. The release will be available from Ergodos Records in early October; however for those of you who cannot wait, we have an excerpt to satisfy your intrigue

The recording of Revelavit has been celebratory as it arrives with Buckley’s appointment as Composer in Residence at RTÉ Lyric FM for 2011-2012.

The release of Revelavit will be alongside Ergodos’ All the Ends of the Earth tour, within which Buckley’s piece will be performed by Ergodos Musicians along with works by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice. All the Ends of the Earth will be an evening performance of the collective influence of the music of Magister Léonin.

All the Ends of the Earth will b at the Project Issue Room in Brooklyn, New York on October 6th, and moves to the Project Arts Centre in Dublin on October 29th.

Full details and press information for Revelavit as well as ticket information for All the Ends of the Earth tour will be available in the coming weeks.

Following the success of Immersia in April, Ergodos will continue an ongoing series of quarterly editions at LEAP (Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance) in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz.

The summer edition, entitled Counterpoint, will feature a performance of music for solo clarinet and playback by Ergodos Musicians clarinetist Jonathan Sage, alongside an interactive sound installation by acclaimed Irish composer Jonathan Nangle, and a new sound installation in celebration of the mix-tape.

‘My father is an architect and I am a composer. From time to time we talk about problems of design as they relate to our professions. This usually leads to his quoting the iconic German architect Mies van der Rohe: ‘Architecture begins when two bricks are placed carefully together.’ This simple, powerful statement always reminds me of the primacy of counterpoint in the craft of music. It makes me think of the medieval-period Latin origin of the word: punctus contra punctum – literally, “note against note”. Counterpoint is more than a musicological term with a plethora of historical understandings; it’s a profound and elegant idea, perhaps the elemental idea in all creative work.’ – Garrett Sholdice

See here for full information.

‘Thoughts crystallise, become atmosphere. Ambiences contract, seize up, splinter. Everything within; the eye sees in all directions.’ (more)

To coincide with the Reich Effect festival taking place in Cork between 27 and 31 July, Ergodos Records has released a new recording of Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, a work for eleven clarinets. Each clarinet part was recorded by Ergodos Musicians clarinettist Jonathan Sage – Sage’s innate feel for Reich’s pulsing and swinging rhythms make for a track that’s a head and shoulders above the competition. Purchase your copy from iTunes and download the complete artwork for free here.

Ergodos have released Not, a gently seductive work using sampled piano by Clive Wilkinson. Haunted by the ghost of the ‘sad bird’ in Maurice Ravel’s piano masterpiece Miroirs, Not is both an elegy and an atmosphere. Not was created using a single sample from a recording of Angela Hewitt performing ‘Oiseaux tristes’ from Ravel’s Miroirs. The looping of this sample against a shorter version of itself creates beautifully subtle rhythmic activity. The surface of the music is ever-changing, but its core is still, ever-poised. (more)

Ergodos Musicians feature on a new Ergodos Records release of work by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly. The way we met was commissioned by Liv O’Donoghue for a dance production of the same name at the Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo, Ireland, with choreography by O’Donoghue and film by Luca Truffarelli and Michele Ragni. (more)

The Kinsale-born composer, Linda Buckley, will have her music featured on a CD of Irish music presented to the visiting parties of Queen Elisabeth II and President Obama during their state visits to Ireland in May. (more)

We are delighted to announce Star (ER3), an album of works by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, Garrett Sholdice and Simon O’Connor performed by Maya Homburger (Baroque violin) and Barry Guy (double bass).

These three works, each composed specifically for this incomparable duo, are a reminder of the value of concentration, quietude, and slowness.

Recorded in a tiny, secluded parish church in Beltra, County Sligo, these recordings are full of the atmosphere of that countryside: fresh and spacious. A place where the music – and the musicians – could breath deeply.

Preview and purchase Star here.

Ergodos and LEAP (Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance) Berlin are delighted to announce the start of an ongoing collaborative relationship, which will manifest itself primarily in a quarterly ‘edition’ at the Alexanderplatz space. (more)

Ergodos Records will shortly be releasing Star, a three-track album featuring Maya Homburger (Baroque violin) and Barry Guy (double bass). The release, which will be available from this website, Bandcamp and iTunes within the coming fortnight, includes music by Garrett Sholdice, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Simon O’Connor. To be kept informed about the progress of this release, please subscribe to our newsletter on the right-hand side of this page, or follow Ergodos on Facebook or Twitter.