Irish Arts Center and National Sawdust Announce The Irish Origin Series

Irish Arts Center co-presents National Sawdust's Irish Origins Series, highlighting contemporary Irish music, held October 27-28 at the cutting-edge Williamsburg, Brooklyn venue. The series sees genre-defying quartet This Is How We Fly returning to New York City to launch and perform work from their awaited second album, Foreign Fields, which continues their transcendent approach to traditional sounds. (Oct. 27 & 28) On the evening of October 28, master Sean-nós vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird and Brooklyn ensemble Contemporaneous will further fuse modernity with Irish musical tradition through new sean-nós work by composer Dan Trueman, and a stunning piece of contemporary chamber music from Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy; pianist Isabelle O'Connell will begin this evening with a program of renowned, living Irish new music composers.

This Is How We Fly's performances are tributes to the fact that sound cannot be made through stillness: the momentous creation of their music becomes its own special art to behold. In their live shows, audiences watch Appalachian hard shoe dancer Nic Gareiss create propulsive, foundational rhythms for an Irish fiddler (Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh) who's not afraid to step outside convention, a Dublin jazzman (Seán Mac Erlaine) who has moved beyond the linear constraints of the genre, and a lyrical Swedish percussionist (Petter Berndalen) redefining the melodic and sonic place of drums within the contours of traditional song.

This Is How We Fly was initially formed for the 2010 Irish Fringe Festival by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, but the musicians brought together for this collaboration were so taken with its potential that their band became a continued project, finding new and thrilling ways to integrate traditional Irish music, Swedish folk, jazz, and percussive dance for the last seven years.Individually, each member has carved out a reputation for not just mastering their chosen fields, but rising above, redefining and renewing the musical world they come from. Recorded live over three performances in Dublin, This Is How We Fly's latest material, Foreign Fields, combines its four musicians' unique cultures and musical vocabularies with a liberated and playful spirit. Having received a rapturous response during their performances at IAC in spring 2015, audiences will again be charmed by their collective voice and undeniable energy, fresh off the heels of their latest creation.

The Oct. 28 evening concert will open with a performance by Irish pianist Isabelle O'Connell, known for applying her technical articulation and kinetic flair to a "fervent advocacy of contemporary music [that is] one of her most notable attributes as a performer." (Sunday Tribune) The evening will then move toward the works of two composers in the vanguard of new music, performed by 21-piece ensemble Contemporaneous and Iarla Ó Lionáird, a musician renowned for his voice's profound evocation of Irish history-and his ability to use it to exhilarating contemporary ends.

ÓLionáird, acclaimed for his solo work as well as for having been a member of Afro Celt Sound System and now being a member of celebrated supergroup The Gloaming, long ago began using the traditionalism of his vocal training within innovative musical contexts. A decade ago, he worked with esteemed composer Donnacha Dennehy on "Grá agus Bás," which the Guardian deemed "a piece of startling freshness, with Ó Lionáird's voice at the centre of a seething web of instrumental lines that seems to commute freely between utterly different musical worlds without any trace of dislocation." That piece, likewise an essential part of Contemporaneous' dauntlessly groundbreaking repertoire, is one of the select works that will be performed during this concert at National Sawdust. Ó Lionáird and Contemporaneous will also play works by Dan Trueman, the software designing, fiddle playing co-founder of Princeton Laptop Orchestra, whose compositions often giddily pair tradition and the musical potentials of technology. The floor will be opened to a discussion with composers (including Dennehy, a co-curator of the event) about the development of Irish music-while the performed works themselves will present dynamic manifestations of these evolutions.

The Irish Origins Series is part of National Sawdust's season-long Origins theme, a radical sharing of culture that presents music from a multicultural slate of curators, artist-in-residence, and targeted multi-performance series that spotlight different regions of the world.

IRISH ORIGINS SERIES SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Irish Origins Series: This is How we Fly
Presented by Irish Arts Center and National Sawdust
Friday, October 27 | 7pm
Saturday, October 28 | 3pm

Irish Origins Series: Iarla Ó Lionáird & Contemporaneous perform Dan Trueman & Donnacha Dennehy
Presented by Irish Arts Center and National Sawdust
Sat, Oct 28 | 7:30pm

All performances located at National Sawdust, 80 North 6th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11249. Tickets can be purchased through National Sawdust at 646-779-8455 or online at boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org. Tickets for each concert are $29 for advanced General Admission, or $34 at the door; $21.75 Group General Admission tickets available online for groups of four or more.

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