An emergency foil blanket for use in Jennifer Walshe's The White Noisery.
The White Concert
The National Chamber Choir of Ireland is performing a new programme that combines the music of John Cage and Irish composer Jennifer Walshe. Titled The White Concert, the programme will be heard in Dublin — on Saturday, 20 October in the Kevin Barry Room of the National Concert Hall — and Belfast — on Sunday, 21 October in the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast.
The choir, conducted by Paul Hillier, will perform John Cage’s Hymns and Variations, a work from 1979 for twelve amplified voices. To write the pieces (the work is in ten parts), Cage used a technique whereby he subtracted notes from the hymns Old North and Heath, which were written by the eighteenth-century composer William Billings.
The White Noisery is a new work by Walshe, commissioned by the choir. The choir has been charting a number of ‘mysterious deliveries’ on its Facebook page over the last few weeks — items for use in the piece include an emergency foil blanket, green recorders, sixteen pairs of sunglasses, a harmonica and six sets of headphones.
