Béal have announced the details of their 2012 Festival exploring the connections between text, theatre and contemporary music. The festival will take place at the Smock Alley Banquet Hall across the weekend of 7 – 9 November, and is ‘all about finding alternative ways (no matter how rough and ready) of thinking and experiencing, building alternative combinations of words and music.’ The main motivators behind Béal are composer David Bremner and singer Elizabeth Hilliard, who say they ‘are entranced by the fascinating capacity of words to be both pure sound and a means of communication, and our mission is to explore this in the spoken and sung word.’

The featured composers of this year’s festival are the American composers Robert Ashley and Tom Johnson, and on the weekend’s programme will be Ashley’s recent opera World War III Just the Highlights as well as a newly commissioned work for vocal ensemble by Johnson. The group will also be performing a selection of works by Irish composers, obtained through their recent call for scores inspired by the work of Robert Ashley.

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