SEASON 26/27

Malfunctioning Wor(l)ds: (im)Material Dimensions is a live performance where improvised drawing, live image, instrumental sound, and spatial audio unfold together in the SARC Lab. An overhead camera captures the drawing as it is made, feeding the live image into multiple displays placed throughout the space. At the same time, the sound of drawing is amplified, processed, and spatialised through a bespoke live system. Performing with Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, Hamilton and the musicians improvise in relation to one another. Small marks, instrumental gestures, hesitations, silences, nd shifts in pressure become part of one shared spatial composition. No single performer, image, instrument, or system leads throughout. Direction passes between drawing, instrumental sound, gesture, silence, and spatial movement. The work asks what communication becomes when it moves beyond words and is carried through listening, looking, adjustment, and response. Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Hard Rain perform a lunchtime concert as part of Hugh Lane Gallery's Sundays at Noon series. Tesserae begins and ends with echoes of the past. In Irish Mythology, the Fomorians were the demons of night, darkness, death, barrenness, and evil. ‘Elatha’, one of their chiefs, is described in an old manuscript as of magnificent presence – a beautiful prince of darkness. Tesserae (a graphic score in G minor) is a visual mosaic of musical fragments and references, both overt and oblique. Holding echoes of past performances, Hard Rain cellist David McCann’s previously-played strings and Ioana Petcu-Colan’s own discarded violin bow hair add narrative, while subtle inversions of light, shadow and depth of field encourage reflection on perspective and interpretation. In Saariaho’s Mirrors there is also freedom, the performers can build and play their own versions of the score while creating musical mirrors (there should be always a mirror maintained across the dimensions of rhythm, pitch, instru­mental gesture or timbre). We also present the Irish premiere of Taboo by UK/Filipino composer Zygmund De Somogyi. Their recent works have explored themes of digital folklore, collaborative worldbuilding, queer identity, metamodern aesthetics, and contradictory recontextualisations of genre and form. Elements of nature form the inspiration behind works by Judith Weir, Jane O’Leary and Amy Rooney while John Luther Adams (well-known for environmentalism) offers a dedication to the memory of his friend Gordon Wright. United through common bonds of music and Alaska, his miniature musical sketches present three moments and places in their friendship.

Hard Rain cellist David McCann crosses centuries, featuring Bach’s Suite No.1 for solo cello in G major alongside a selection of his original compositions, composed over the last decade.

Aisling Agnew (flute) and Alex Petcu (percussion) present a free concert of contemporary music featuring music by Frederic Devreese, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Alice Gomez, Jane O'Leary and Gareth Farr.

Silence and Sound Waves marks the 80th Birthday of one of the most significant composers on this island, Jane O’Leary. Going beyond borders to explore heritage and language, this concert reflects on multi-culturalism and cross-artform connections. Featuring some of Jane’s most atmospheric compositions for Hard Rain, this includes her most recent commission by Access Contemporary Music for their PBS programme Songs about Buildings and Moods. Joining us from ACM in Chicago is Seth Boustead, presented alongside highly talented local composers Elaine Agnew, Anselm McDonnell, Anderinna Gooch and Omar Zatriqi.

With special guests Malachy Frame and Sarah Richmond. This programme is a reflection on the relationship between human beings and nature, drawing on poetry and text. It challenges the idea that humanity has constructed itself as separate from, and superior to, nature. This also considers parallels within our society in how throughout history, patriarchal culture has similarly constructed women as subordinate and acquiescent. PROGRAMME Birding by Ear (2019) - Perry Goldstein / Poetry by Richard Powers *Irish premiere Song of the Birds (1998) - Sally Beamish / From Catalan Folksong Songs from Revered Scorned Women (2025) - Áine Mallon / Text by Emily DeDakis *World premiere Relativity and Revelation (2015) - Sarah Lianne Lewis / Poetry by J.L.Williams Buaneitilt (2022) - Jane O’Leary / Poetry by Emily Dickinson Death of a Naturalist (2020/22) - Greg Caffrey / Poetry by Seamus Heaney