BECKETT CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
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Beckett Chamber Music Series 2020
 
To be released
Is there something paralysingly sacred contained within the unnature of the word that does not belong to the elements of the other arts? Is there any reason why that terrifyingly arbitrary materiality of the word surface should not be dissolved, as for example the sound surface of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is devoured by huge black pauses, so that for pages on end we cannot perceive it as other than a dizzying path of sounds connecting unfathomable chasms of silence?

Samuel Beckett in a 1937 letter to Axel Kaun

words and music

Beckett Chamber Music Series explores the connection between words and music – thematically, expressively, spatially and temporally – inspired by Samuel Beckett's reduction of artistic expression into a medium which is something in between these two things. This blurring of the line between words and music is the central idea of the Beckett Chamber Music Series.
 
The 2018 Series brings together an ensemble of Ireland's finest musicians for intensive musical and artistic discovery, to be shared with audiences in three ambitious concert programmes featuring major chamber music works from the 20th century by Arnold Schoenberg combined with rarely performed works by Irish composer John Larchet, Swiss composer Frank Martin, a newly commissioned piano trio by Irish composer Sebastian Adams, and culminates in a performance of Samuel Beckett’s radio play Words and Music with Morton Feldman’s 1987 score. The performance of Words and Music is in collaboration with Everett Frost, who produced and directed the award-winning American national broadcast premieres of Beckett's five completed radio plays and features internationally recognised actors Barry McGovern and Stephen Brennan.

The Series takes place in the last week of June at the dramatic yet intimate Boys School space at Smock Alley Theatre on the quays in Dublin city centre.​

CONCERTS

24 June 2018, 7pm 
Instrumentalising Folk Song


​Frank Martin
Piano Trio
on Irish folk melodies
​
Sebastian Adams
2018.1 world premiere

John Larchet 
Irish Airs arr. violin and piano




27 June 2018, 8pm 
Schoenberg and Poetry


Arnold Schoenberg 
Verklärte Nacht


Arnold Schoenberg
 Pierrot Lunaire

With readings of the poems that inspired both works by Barry McGovern



30 June 2018, 8pm 
Words and Music


Samuel Beckett /
Morton Feldman
 
Words and Music

Morton Feldman
Vertical Thought 2
Projection 1

Four Instruments

Edgard Varèse
Density 21.5

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​Beckett Chamber Music Series​
​Artistic Director: Sarah Sew ​· General Manager: David Collins
​Copyright © 2019
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  • Home
  • Artist Biographies
  • Instrumentalising Folk Song
  • Schoenberg and Poetry
  • Words and Music