SEASON 25/26

Interior Scenes is a meaningful programme, showcasing highly accomplished works for ensemble, while exploring current connections for Hard Rain. We mark the 90th birthday of celebrated Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and perform his iconic reflective work Speigel im Speigel. We feature collaborations with Irish composers well-known to us, and recent international connections we have made. A connection borne out of our 2025 UK/Poland project with British Council, and having worked with Lena Michajłów at AzTak Festival, we are delighted to bring her unique musical language to Belfast. We give the Irish premiere of works by Peter Fahey, Lecturer in Composition at Queen’s University and Richard Causton, Professor of Composition at the University of Cambridge. We also feature a world premiere of The Lake composed for us by Helgi Ingvarsson, whose music is “full of emotion and mesmerising”. John McLachlan’s Aurora “is an exploration of collage techniques in music” referring to both dawn and the aurora borealis while Counterweight by Aílís Ní Ríain for contrabass clarinet challenges the impacts of exclusion, inequality and discrimination on an individual.

Parallel Lines is an Irish/US programme, celebrating the diversity of music in each country. We explore the juxtaposition of hypnotic tonal works often featuring driving rhythmic elements vs tone-based works that extract elements from electronic music to create a new acoustic framework and sense of timelessness. We feature local composers Frank Lyons and Peter O’Doherty, while marking the 90th birthday of legendary minimalist composer Steve Reich with a return to one of his most treasured works ‘Double Sextet’. We also look at Reich’s influence on younger generations of American composers, and give premieres of works by Scott L. Miller, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Juhi Bansal. Originally from India and Hong Kong, Bansal’s music is always driven by storytelling, with a particular focus on stories of strong women, wilderness, and celebrating cultural and ideological diversity.

Peaceline Perspectives features highly evocative pieces from the North of Ireland. The music is interwoven with voices and soundscapes inspired around Belfast’s Peaceline, which separates the nationalist and loyalist communities. This performance showcases the work of multiple composers whose musical voices are shaped by their shared Northern Irish heritage. Greg Caffrey’s Tout (a slang term meaning informer) reflects on the horror, danger and mistrust prevalent during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Elaine Agnew’s I Want to tell you consists of instrumental duos accompanying a voice track of victims, survivors and displaced families affected by conflict, while Úna Monaghan uses the sounds of helicopters, drone noises and animal hunting whistles to depict the nature of people being quite literally Hunted. There are moments of tranquility too. Áine Mallon’s Cállan and Ryan Molloy’s Gortnagarn offer meditative reflections on the beauty of our shared landscape, and its meaning in our lives. Eduard Zatriqi’s War Games was composed as a musical commentary on the conflicts evident around the world in early 2016. Reading news articles concerning the rise of populism, nationalism, and violence perpetrated in the name of religion, he was struck by humanity's apparent inability or unwillingness to learn from past errors. Ten years on from that, it seems we are very much in the same situation, if not worse, and so this impassioned work brings the programme to a dramatic conclusion.

Combining the forces of Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, jazz drummer Steve Davis and bringing together talented young musicians from Ulster Youth Orchestra and Ulster Youth Jazz Orchestra, this is a genre-defying discovery of new music. This concert will showcase local composers Ed Bennett and Elaine Agnew alongside the prolific experimental composer Anthony Braxton in an exploration of his unique musical language. This workshop is designed to encourage all musicians to reach beyond their comfort zone, try new performance techniques and extend their knowledge of current contemporary music, both local and international. Classically trained players will have the opportunity to explore improvisation and experimental music, whilst jazz-trained musicians will develop score-reading and the preparation and performance of defined musical scores.