New works by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Nico Muhly will be performed as part of two concerts at the National Concert Hall this Sunday 13th and Monday 14th September.

Included as part of a new show titled Blood and the Moon, curated by Thomas Bartlett of The Gloaming and poet Paul Muldoon, the concerts feature a range of singers including Anna Calvi, Sam Amidon, Robert Forster, Adrian Crowley, Vivian Bond, Michelle O’Rourke, Daire Halpin and Cathal Coughlan.

They will be accompanied by a house band that includes Bartlett (piano), Doug Weiselman (saxophones), Brad Albetta (bass), Paul Noonan (drums) and Lisa Dowdall (viola), plus live imaging by Tom Kalin. Irish novelist Pat McCabe will also be appearing. 

Schlepper-Connolly’s work is titled Man and the Echo and will be performed by mezzo-soprano O’Rourke. He commented,

I grew up amidst Yeats’ writing, but also many of the places that inspired him, especially those in County Sligo. For the Blood and the Moon project I wanted to go back to some of those places… One place in particular – the Alt Cleft or Alt Glen, a kind of natural cathedral just under Knocknarea – has a special allure. A rift in the limestone formed out of a geological fault, this place has a very particular acoustic, very still and at the same time resonant. This is the setting of Yeats’ poem ‘Man and the Echo’, which he wrote right at the end of his life. I feature both the poem and the place in the piece…

Nico Muhly’s new piece, Byzantium, will be performed by Bartlett and soprano Halpin.

Other works to be performed include arrangements of ‘Down By The Salley Gardens’ by Amidon and ‘Easter 1916’ by Coughlan and Bartlett.

The programme is the same for both nights. For more, visit www.nch.ie