Riot Ensemble

Tickets £21 // Concession £17 // Under 30 £5
Advance booking required

Riot Ensemble:
Richard Craig bass flute
Taylor Maclennan bass flute
Philip Haworth oboe
Heather Roche bass clarinet
Amy Green saxophone
Pétur Jónasson electric guitar
Sam Wilson percussion
Ben Powell piano
Goska Isphording harpsichord / synth
Marie Schreer violin
Stephen Upshaw viola
Louise McMonagle cello
Marianne Schofield double bass

Adam Swayne conductor

Bára Gísladóttir (Iceland, 1989)
The moon is an eye is a pond and so on and so forth (2023) 65’ World Premiere

Bringing this year’s festival to a close, Riot Ensemble are back in Huddersfield to share the World Premiere of a new, extensive 65-minute work from Bára Gísladóttir. The Icelandic composer’s latest piece, The moon is an eye is a pond and so on and so forth, expands upon her growing relationship with co-commissioners Riot Ensemble and hcmf// following 2021’s RPS-shortlisted Animals of your pasture. Having been written across the summer and autumn this year, the new composition hinges on an abstract, otherworldly concept that is twofold.

In one sense, the piece carries the idea of stepping into an elevator and traveling to a new floor, a new space, a new world, new dimensions even. Gísladóttir imagines these different environments to be polarised and stark, like a world of wrath and a garden of the sacred. In another sense, the piece presents the idea of a reflection between these different locales and beings, and how these entities may be perceived as one: the moon may shine down, reflecting from a pond to an eye. The eye may appear as a pond, appearing as a moon. Thus, the reflection of moonlight may, in some way, be reflected back to the moon, and so on, and so forth.

Produced by hcmf// as part of Kirklees Year of Music 2023, supported by Kirklees Council; also supported by Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and hcmf// Benefactor Professor Mick Peake OBE

The moon is an eye is a pond and so on and so forth is co-commissioned by Riot Ensemble and hcmf//

The moon is an eye is a pond and so on and so forth is part of the Sounds Now project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

Image: Drawing of Riot Ensemble players from hcmf// 2022 by audience member Rosa Munro