Crash Ensemble

Tickets £28 // Concession £21 // Under 30 £5
Advance booking required

Crash Ensemble

Barry O’Halpin solo electric guitar
Ryan McAdams conductor
Jack Phelan visuals

Barry O’Halpin (Ireland, 1987)
Wingform (2021) 65’

Wingform is an hour-length work in four movements, with solo electric guitar passages as connective tissue. It serves as the culmination of Barry O’Halpin’s period as Crash Ensemble’s composer-in-residence, alongside his first few years as the group’s guitarist.

Teeming with living energy, Wingform takes advantage of Crash’s unique ability to cover a breadth of musical ground: winding melodies, mechanical rhythms, rapid lines and hypnotic drones. Swarming mosquitos and electrical hum are mimicked by the ensemble, recurring in mantra-like waves, constantly contorting into new shapes.

Barry’s exploratory and highly personal approach to the electric guitar weaves through these uncanny combinations of wild and human-made sounds.

‘From the opening moments of [Wingform] it was clear that something quite special was happening….it was impossible not to visualise diverse soundscapes from underwater cries of whales or dolphins to more industrial sounding material. The second movement demonstrated how to write pointillistic music and yet make it sound utterly fresh with some wonderful writing for prepared piano and percussion…The piece didn’t sag at all throughout the sixty-five minute duration, a testimony to O’Halpin’s compositional skill and inventiveness. A sure candidate for the revelation of New Music Dublin 2021, this piece simply has to be top of Crash’s list of priorities for a live, in-person performance when things get back to normal.’

– Adrian Smith, The Journal of Music.

Produced by hcmf// supported by Culture Ireland

Wingform is commissioned by Crash Ensemble with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon

Crash Ensemble is strategically funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, and is also in receipt of funding from Dublin City Council and Culture Ireland

Crash Ensemble is resident at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland

Photo: Crash Ensemble © Ros Kavanagh