Six New Works for Violin
https://larissaogrady.bandcamp.com/album/six-new-works-for-violin
A programme of new music composed by a collection of 6 Irish composers including David Bremner, Jenn Kirby, Judith Ring, Anselm McDonnell, Robert Coleman, Fiona Linnane
This project came into existence as part of the Contemporary Artists Network, established by the Contemporary Music Centre, which pairs composers and performers interested in engaging with contemporary music from Ireland as artistic partners. As part of this Network, in 2022 Larissa O’Grady commissioned 6 new works for violin and electronics/multimedia by a group of 6 composers from Ireland, collaborating to explore the possibilities of new sounds, which culminated in a public performance of the commissioned works for violin and multimedia. These commissions were generously supported by Arts Council Ireland.
Featuring a wide range of presentations from spoken word to sensor led playback, live and fixed electronics, microtonal writing conveying the chemical process of burning sugar, and a live field recordist recording and playing back the violin and sounds of a greater spotted woodpecker.
CD and Digital Album available soon from the Farpoint Recordings webshop and Bandcamp
Suppported by Arts Council Ireland and the Contemporary Music Centre
¯Recent Projects
6 solo violin commissions 2022/2023
Commissions for solo violin
6 Solo violin commissions. The development and performance of 6 new works by CMC composers Anselm McDonnell, David Bremner, Fiona Linnane, Judith Ring, Jenn Kirby and Robert Coleman.
Premiered at The Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin on September 3rd 2023
DISCORD
DISCORD
Dublin Alive 2021 Meeting House Square September 2021
About DISCORD Sculpture/Skate/Violin
In 2021 I began collaborating with sculptor, Alex Pentek and the composer, Sam Perkin. The new piece we created, DISCORD, especially for Dublin City Arts Office and Dublin City Council was performed on Sunday September 26th 2021 in Meeting House Square, Dublin.
DISCORD is a musical performance in a newly created deployable, origami-inspired, concert stage that can change form and be skateboarded.
The new artistic work, which blurs the line between performance and installation, is a musical performance which includes a new work for solo violin with an electronic element, performed in front the structure, along with the amplification of sounds of skateboarding on the wooden structure itself – finishing with skateboarders taking ownership of the structure as it is being compressed flat – using the structure as a skate prop to skate on and around.
Funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
Shadow once complete
Shadow Once Complete
Shadow Once Complete –
Irish tour 2022
A collaborative text based project with composer David Bremner and writers Kit Fryatt and Joanna Walsh.
“During March 2022, in venues in Dublin, Cork and Limerick Béal presented ‘shadow once complete’ a new collaboration, developed from the Contemporary Music Centre’s CMC Colleagues scheme, between violinist Larissa O’Grady and composer David Bremner. They have devised an ‘algorithmic storytelling’ combining algorithmic text, live electronics and lattice-based improvisation on violin.
The storytelling is done by the violinist, whose pitches and dynamics act on the patch, prompting weighted-random projected text. The use of the MUGIC® bow motion sensor adds an extra element.
Béal have commissioned new texts for the performances from Joanna Walsh and Kit Fryatt.
The print studio venues were chosen in response to the text-based nature of the work. The event is designed as a really immersive experience for an audience.
The piece is concerned with how meaning is constructed by an audience from limited building blocks, the invisible connections between words, making this process explicit, so a ‘constructivist’ setting works nicely: an assemblage of scattered partly-made artefacts is the perfect backdrop.”
Tree-Oh
RESONATE Residency @ The Dock
Music Network RESONATE Artist in Residence at the Dock Arts Centre, Leitrim 2021/2022
A solo violin programme with mixed-media which also inspires a new cohort of nature lovers to engage with nature on a local level at Lough Key Forest Park.
Video footage, captured by filmmaker Nestor Romero Clemente during the residency, projected during the performance of Michael Gordon’s piece for 3 violins ‘Tree-Oh’.
The programme includes a new work ‘L@rissa’ composed by award winning Irish composer Sam Perkin, for solo violin and pre-recorded electronic part.
LARISSA O'GRADY 