Crash Ensemble – Granulated Frequencies

The world premiere of ‘Metamold’ by the 2019 Barlow Prize Winner, Bekah Simms and the world premiere of ‘Images & Sensations’ by Irish producer and DJ Ellen King (ELLLL), a Crash Ensemble & New Music Dublin co-commission alongside [REACTIONS] - new music from David Fennessy and Anna Murray set to film by videographer Laura Sheeran. 

Bekah Simms Metamold 

Ellen King Images and Sensations 

Crash Ensemble 

Ryan McAdams Conductor 

Laura Sheeran, Visuals 

Metamold is a new work from Bekah Simms, the 2019 Barlow prize winner. Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University for three ensembles: Eighth Blackbird, New York New Music Ensemble and Crash Ensemble. “The three commissioning ensembles of Metamold are embedded within the work; the electronic element is sourced almost exclusively from provided recordings of their musical performances. Both their sound and interpretive inclinations are inherent within these recordings, and this carries forward into the processed audio that make up the fixed media portion of the electronics. 

The transmission and processing of audio – as it becomes further and further away from its intended purpose as a recorded performance – becomes diluted, accruing artefacts both sonic and contextual. The disembodied version of the players is further abstracted, granulated, separated from the whole. It was impossible to ignore the connections between this concept and the experience of global-pandemic-induced isolation; for now, the only way I’ve experienced my family and friends is abstracted, granulated, separated from the whole, transmitted through speakers and screens and disembodied.” - Bekah Simms

Images & Sensations is a Crash Ensemble and New Music Dublin commission from Irish producer and DJ Ellen King (ELLLL) 

“Images & Sensations is primarily an exploration through slow paced, hypnotic sounds and textures that evoke memories, dreams (good, bad, lucid), and feelings of deja vu, nostalgia, temperature (warm, icy), and tension.” - Ellen King 

[REACTIONS] 

An honest, human and emotive response for now and the future. Amidst the onset of the global pandemic, in 2020, Crash Ensemble commissioned 9 Irish composers - established, up and coming and from outside of the contemporary music sphere - to write unique new works for duos within the group. Composers were asked to create a musical response - a political or personal response to their experiences, the current state, or their thoughts for the future. 

Filmmaker Laura Sheeran was commissioned to make an accompanying film for each work, combining footage from the recording sessions alongside text and imagery. 

[REACTIONS] Composers: 

David Fennessy 

Anna Murray 

Performers: 

Crash Ensemble 

Videographer: Laura Sheeran