Choir-In-Residence Chamber Choir Ireland will once again grace the Festival with its presence for a concert in the beautiful surrounds of St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral.

Chamber Choir Ireland continue their 2022 retrospective on Steve Martland, with a concert which places the late composer in the context of his contemporaries, John Frandsen and John Luther Adams—both born within a few years of him.

Martland’s Sea Songs is a kind of sequel to his Street Songs, making similar use of the English Folk Song and Dance Society library in order to draw from traditional sea shanties.

“I wanted specifically to find texts that were not just the usual nautical heave-ho sort of thing, but instead explored the dangers and hardships still being experienced by sailors as recently as the early 19th century. I was also very happy to see in these texts the sense of camaraderie and mutual support that existed between the sailors.” – Martland

In weather4casts: 4 seasons in 4 movements, John Frandsenupholds the long tradition of music inspired by the seasons of the year. The text is a compilation of weather forecasts from the Danish Institute of Meteorology (translated into English by Paul Hillier) as well as poems by the Danish author Simon Grotrian, and looks at the place of weather as ‘a main common life condition’ (Frandsen).

A new co-commission from John Luther Adams, A Brief Descent into Deep Time, explores the ‘space’ between the environment and human culture, and time as measured on a geological scale, passing ‘metaphorically through 1.7 billion years of descent through the layers of the Grand Canyon’ (Adams). All three works explore our growing consciousness of the powerful elements that surround us—and how they are changing. Looking at our relationship with our environment, we realise that what once may have seemed far-removed is, in fact, something of which we are very much a part.

Conductor
Paul Hillier

Programme
Steve Martland (UK, 1954-2013) - Sea Songs
John Frandsen (Denmark, b. 1956) - weather4casts: 4 seasons in 4 movements
John Luther Adams (USA, b. 1953) - A Brief Descent into Deep Time (Commissioned by Kings Place, London. Co-Commissioned by Cork International Choral Festival/Chamber Choir Ireland with funds from The Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaion; And Carnegie Hall)
Daragh Black Hynes (b. 1983) - Behind This Light *Seán Ó’Riada Competition Winner