Wilson - Lost Voices (Farpoint CD, 2026)

Ian Wilson - Lost Voices

Voces amissae ('Lost Voices')
for voice, cello, three violas and two percussionists
Lotte Betts-Dean, mezzo-soprano
Ensemble Musikfabrik
Ian Wilson, conductor

Farpoint Recordings CD, 2026

Ian Wilson's Voces amissae ('Lost Voices', 2023) approaches a vast subject with minimal musical and lyrical means. A 50-minute work for mezzo-soprano, cello, three violas and two percussionists, it looks at the subject of how voices can be silenced - whether through political or domestic oppression, though a medical condition or simply in how the growing use of technology and mobile phones distances us from being able to communicate and fully express ourselves. More than just telling us about this, the work invites the listener to feel this experience for themselves - to a necessarily lesser degree - as a way of reflecting on just how important an issue it is for us all.

Personal experience lies behind the inspiration for this subject and the approach that was undertaken to present it. The Irish composer Ian Wilson was working on a project to be sung by the Dutch soprano Nora Fischer, only to discover that Fischer was at that time suffering from vocal difficulties. Rather than abandon the project, the composer and singer chose to explore the challenges this loss of voice presented and widened the subject to consider other 'lost voices' that had been silenced, the personal impact of this, and how one might overcome the problem. Using excerpts from a number of interviews undertaken by Fischer and Wilson within a framework of extracts from "Under the glass of the volcano" by the Serbian poet Draginja Adamović, Lost Voices is performed here by the Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and Ensemble Musikfabrik, conducted by the composer and recorded live at Ensemble Musikfabrik Studio in Köln in 2024

The subject dictating form to an extent, the work approaches several fundamental aspects of music that most perhaps take for granted. One is the question of what exactly music is, how it is formed from sounds and noises, how it breaks silence and how the instruments interact with each other to create a voice for expression of ideas and emotions. The other is the impression that music makes on us, how we are drawn to those sounds and how we process them. Perhaps above all there is a consideration of how important sound, music and the voice is as a necessary means of communication. The challenge of course is how to present those themes and ideas in a way that allows you to appreciate the sounds, their importance and meaning.

In that respect, the use of minimal instrumentation here is complementary to Wilson's Orpheus Down (2021), which has no words, the music itself taking on the role of another 'lost voice' struggling to deal with death and bereavement, undertaking a journey so important that it necessitates overcoming the darkness of the Underworld to find what has been lost and bring it back. The musical and vocal elements of Lost Voices take us on a similar journey, the music often evolving out of silence, starting out as noises, clicks and humming drones, taking form and shape and finding a path through the struggle into a form of rhythm and melody. Evidently it's the voices that take precedence here in the consideration of what it means if we lose that voice or it is taken away from us, how to find that voice again and how necessary it is as something that helps us understand and express "what it is to be alive and feel a sense of joy".

The often unconventional instrumentation seeks to find the most effective way to express and share the physical and emotional complexity of a variety of human experiences surrounding this; painful experiences that can't simply be put into words, but each demonstrating resilience and a willingness to find a way through them. It's as close to sharing and feeling those experiences that you would want to come. The strings - only cello and violas, instruments with a range closest to the human voice - fight against percussive sounds that for brief periods and short interludes rumble, rustle and drone, with flickers of voices and singing on distant radio programmes cutting through. Silence and space are also used to allow the pieces to breathe, to let silence exert its own power.

In such an environment every note and sound has purpose; nothing is superfluous. The music and words can speak of violence one minute - harsh rustling sounds lying behind the words of the the woman forced into an arranged marriage and forbidden to sing with threats of beatings - and silence the next, silence as another form of choice of expression; "My silence is marvellously untouchable to you", she observes. In the journey from 'Interlude 5' to 'Six months in hospital' we hear the singer who has lost her voice to an operation gasping for breath and words amidst scratching sounds that evolve into ringing bell (bells and vibraphones seem to embody optimism), the rising strings holding firmness of purpose, building strength and resilience before the reality of the present loosens the grip, spiralling and descending back into a deadening beat.

Evidently, the piece is not seeking to seduce you with sweet sounds that are pleasing to the ear, but Lost Voices nonetheless has an operatic quality in terms of its dramatic and musical phrasing, taking the listener on a journey through its development of a theme. Its unconventional presentation however draws attention to the importance of how music allows us to be a part of the progression of the subject; something that we aren't often aware of or just take for granted. Here it feels like we are given a unique and intimate behind-the-scenes look at the creation and evolution of a musical piece. Which is not to say that the piece is unfinished or unpolished, but rather that the form replicates the subject, leaving room for the listener to find their own space within it and bring that essential additional element of personal investment.

The actual recordings of the interviews gathered for the project could perhaps have been blended in to make this more of a multimedia piece, and those voices might have been interesting to hear, but the process of turning them into song is perhaps more vital to the aim of the project, reflecting the process of transforming sounds and noises into music, words into sentences and into singing. In any case, the different voices and what they convey each have a distinct character in subject and in how Ian Wilson composes music for them. As far as the composer is concerned, the musical voice is also respected here. There is nothing showy, nothing clever, the voice, the speaking, the singing used sparingly to relate only what is necessary, while each note of the music combines to give deeper expression that says something meaningful.

Considering the rapidly changing world we are living in, it is not difficult to place your own lost voice within this without it necessarily having been shut down; it can be all too easy for important voices to become drowned out in the bombardment of shouty social media and misinformation. And with AI progressing, the human voice and the human skills involved in conceptualising ideas and giving them meaningful expression are also in danger of becoming lost. One other thing you begin to appreciate when you listen to the stories and the arrangements here is the importance of the voice; the gift of having a voice can be taken for granted, whether that is as a physical voice, as a singing voice or as a tool for communication. Lost - or taken away - there is a realisation here of how precious a gift it is, one not to be taken lightly. 

It might sound like Lost Voices is an intense and challenging experience that demands a lot from the listener, but essentially it just asks you to listen, and the intricate sound design of the recording of the music here actually does a lot of the work for you, drawing your attention to the meaning and significance of what the words are telling you. That offers an immensely more rewarding experience that involves bringing the listener on a journey, guiding us through an immersive and enveloping experience that confronts ideas that we may not have considered before and takes us out the other side; or at least shows us that there are other ways out. If we can't raise our voices above the noise, we can at least use that gift more wisely.

Voces amissae ('Lost Voices') 50' 00”

Music composed by Ian Wilson
Texts: four poems by Draginja Adamović (Serbia, 1925-2000) and transcriptions of excerpts from a number of interviews undertaken by Nora Fischer and Ian Wilson
Performed by mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and Ensemble Musikfabrik, conducted by the composer

Recorded live at Ensemble Musikfabrik Studio, im Mediapark, Köln, 16th December 2024
Recorded, edited and mixed by David Stalling
Noise reduction by Lazar Arsović
Created with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland

First edition of 300 published by Farpoint Recordings, 2026
Produced by Ian Wilson and David Stalling
Mastered by David Stalling at Stille & Klang, Co. Westmeath, Ireland

Photography and design by Doreen Kennedy

CD Project co-ordinated by David Stalling and Anthony Kelly.

External links: Lost Voices

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble - Ink Still Wet VIII (Belfast, 2024)

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble - Ink Still Wet VIII

Composers: Anselm McDonnell, Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot, Simon Mawhinney, Omar Zatriqi, Peter O'Doherty, Sam Chambers, Ian Wilson

Conductor: Benjamin Haemhouts

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble: Aisling Agnew (flute), Sarah Watts (clarinet), David McCann (cello), Daniel Browell (piano) with guests Alex Petcu (percussion), Ciaran McCabe (violin), Ben Gannon (oboe), Lina Andonovska (flute)

Harty Room, Queen's University, Belfast - 1st February 2025

There may be some commonality in the musical backgrounds of the composers, many of them having studied at Queens University in Belfast or lectured there, but that's to be expected considering that the pieces in this programme of contemporary music are being presented - and in the case of four of the seven pieces actually commissioned - to form part of the eighth annual concert of new music performed by Northern Ireland's principal contemporary music ensemble, the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. New music so fresh in fact that this particular annual programme goes under the title of Ink Still Wet. The backgrounds of the composers however are rather more varied than that suggests and that is reflected in the surprisingly wide variety of compositions presented in Ink Still Wet VIII.

Or perhaps not so surprising really. Aside from the permutations that you can make use of in a core ensemble of five or six musicians and a few additional guests, there are various creative and modern technologies that can be employed where appropriate in service of the demands of any given piece, and some unexpected ones too. As such, none of the pieces in the programme were remotely alike, which is a testament to the individuality and creativity of the composers and to the performers of the HRSE in adapting to those styles, but it's also a sign that new contemporary music is in a very good place at the moment - both locally and internationally - not relying on the style or technique of some of the modern titans of new music past, but seeking to find new and creative means of personal expression that speaks of the world today.

What impressed me most about all the selections is that none of the compositions presented here - well, maybe one or two of them a little - were purely 'conceptual' or technical exercises in virtuosity, but indeed many of them reflected in one form or another consideration of an newfound or revitalised appreciation for nature. The programme notes for Ink Still Wet VIII reveal that many of the pieces here found inspiration from sources in nature, and embraced the challenge of finding an artistic and creative way to express and share those impressions with an audience through music.

The first two pieces in the programme strove to do this by extending the range of traditional musical instruments by including electronic and sound effects from nature. A play on the word Ectosymbiont, that refers to a parasitic organism that attaches itself to another to form a symbiotic relationship Anselm McDonnell's 'Echosymbiont' saw the composer acting as the 'outside' force, processing some of the sounds of the live performance on computer and playing it back through an on-stage speaker as an echoing response. It was a little unsettling initially to hear pauses where Alex Petcu's percussion continued in soft fading delays of electronic reverberations, but aside from perhaps recognising that there is a symbiotic (but hopefully not parasitic) relationship between composer and performers, it also reminded me that music doesn't stop when the playing finishes. It resonates in the room and - hopefully - has made a deeper connection with the listener and perhaps stays with them even longer than that. This one certainly did. 

Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot's 'Lisnabreeny Townland' was perhaps the piece where the connection with nature was most open and obvious without the aid of programme notes, the composer choosing to find her own form of symbiotic relationship in a solo flute composition by introducing field recordings alongside the playing of the flute. In four parts, inspired by walks to the ancient Lisnabreeny Rath in the Castlereagh Hills, the flute blended with and interacted with the sounds of birds, wind, water and leaves, even background sounds of traffic recorded on location. This was not just a pastoral piece however, but touched on mythology and fairy lore and our connection with an ancient world through nature. You could almost imagine this piece working in an outdoor setting, since it certainly achieved a sense of that even within the acoustics of the Harty Room at Queen's University. The piece resonated wonderfully with some deeply felt and sympathetic playing from Aisling Agnew. Again it emphasised how music is all around, how sounds inspire music and how music can strive not just imitate natural sounds but seek to embrace them and invite the listener to hear them in a fresh context while making something entirely new.

Simon Mawhinney perhaps stretched the definition of 'ink still wet' with his piece 'In Blue and Gold', taking a youthful student composition from 1998 and developing it into something new in 2024. If there is a connection to nature here it is at a remove, taking initial inspiration from another artistic work itself based on nature - a Middle Eastern painting 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold' by Walter Greaves, (which in itself were inspired by Whistler's paintings of the Thames in the same style) - which makes it an intriguing proposition when the composer is himself working at a remove and with maturity and experience in response to his younger nature and ideas. And it very much proves to be, the expansion of the instrumentation for a seven piece ensemble requiring the addition of guest oboist Ben Gannon with the HRSE delivering the wonderful richness and fullness of sound of the newly developed piece.

Belfast-born Omar Zatriqi's 'Diatribe' also proved to have a deep connection to exploring personal roots and influences, drawing from the composer's Albanian, Scottish and Croatian heritage. Although it incorporated folk influences from each of these worlds across each of its three sections and coda, there was no evident referencing of old style music in this thoroughly modern and contemporary piece composed for six piece ensemble. That in itself is a testament to acceptance of the gift of diversity and musically processing that mixed heritage into something new. If anything there was an sense of jazz fusion as much as folk in the bringing together of those influences to derive something of a distinct contemporary and personal voice. Different instruments would come into focus in each section, taking a lead and responding to each other, with the piano and marimba acting as a kind of connecting tissue. Each section seemed to build to a head only to be punctuated by crashes to release the build up of tension created by the overwhelming weight of bearing such rich and diverse ideas.

Perhaps it was just a lack of focus on my part after the interval, but Peter O'Doherty's 'Inflorescence' flew over my head and I was unable to find a way into it on a single hearing. It seeks to replicate in its structure the cluster patterns of flowers on a plant, the whole ecosystem of growth, flowering, decay and renewal. I love the idea of taking inspiration from structures in nature but it inevitably makes it a very complex piece with interweaving clusters, creating textures and resonances on adjoining sections and instrumentation. I would like to hear this again to see if I could get my head around it.

While understandably some of the commissioned works take advantage of the full resources of the musicians of the HRSE, there is also the freedom to choose to avail of just one of its soloists. Sam Chambers' 'His Feet are Light and Nimble' for solo violin certainly put guest violinist Ciaran McCabe through his paces, the piece feeling like it lay somewhere between a jig and demonic possession. It's not a long piece but such was the drive and delivery that you almost feared that McCabe was operating under a spell or a curse, and that if he stopped he would drop down dead in the spot. Fortunately that did not happen, but such are the fanciful ideas that come to mind while listening to the thrilling performance of this piece. Perhaps not so fanciful really since the piece is indeed inspired by just such a satanically possessed performance by a character in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.

While trying to navigate my way through a new piece of music heard for the first time, I often look for focus on an instrument that leads the way through it. There was no such difficulty with Sam Chambers' piece and definitely no mistaking that the focus of attention in Ian Wilson's 'When I Became the Sun' was on the rivetting performance of guest flautist Lina Andonovska, for whom the piece was written. Again the concept determined to a certain degree the choice of instrument - another ambitious engagement with nature on a grand scale, perhaps the most important one of all - but there was no failing to recognise the dominance of the role of the flute in the piece or the virtuosity of the performance. Becoming the sun, Andonovska's playing was a stellar force of nature, and if the rest of the ensemble at times felt like they were merely responsive to its force and whims, they were nonetheless vital components in the piece and in the overall fabric of the concept.

Suitably rich in its instrumentation, the piece therefore had a coherence but also an unpredictability in how a response to those emanations could take many forms. Sometimes it manifested as playful ripples of percussion and piano keys, sometimes inviting a concerted rhythmic pulsation from the ensemble, slipping into a melodic bliss or a chaotic breakdown, in the process of course inviting an individual response within the listener. One other quite original element that introduced a hard to define character to the composition was the threading of motifs and indeed riffs, from heavy rock band System of a Down's 'Toxicity' throughout the composition. The title of the composition indeed comes from the last line of the song 'When I became the sun I shone life into the man's hearts'. It served perhaps as the human counterpart to the flute's sun and the ensemble's Earth responsiveness, but certainly brought additional dynamism to the conceptual and musical flavour of the piece.

External links: Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble

Wilson - Orpheus Down (Farpoint CD, 2024)

Ian Wilson - Orpheus Down

Farpoint Recordings, 2024

Ian Wilson, Gareth Davis, Dario Calderone

CD

While its history goes back to Greek mythology, the story of Orpheus holds a very special place in opera. It's not just that it was the subject of one of the very first operas ever created, Monteverdi's L’Orfeo in 1607 is predated only by the now lost Dafne by Jacobo Peri in 1597 and Peri's own version of the story in the earliest known opera Euridice in 1600. It's Monteverdi's work however that remains a cornerstone for what we know as opera today and it is still frequently performed. It's significant that Gluck's version Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) or Orphée et Eurydice (1774) is also one of the most important reform works that redefined and refined opera, but the subject remains popular with artists (notably Cocteau) and contemporary composers, Harrison Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus (1986) being a landmark work in its own right.

Part of the appeal of the work for composers is undoubtedly the nature of Orpheus as a musician and how the myth can be seen as the ultimate expression of artistic creation. Orpheus ventures deep into the underworld armed only with his lyre, confident that his music has the power to protect him from the horrors of the Underworld, charming gods and monsters. It may even be capable of extending and surpassing the capacity of human expression to the extent that it can find a way to overcome death. It's a deeply inspirational story that has indeed inspired artists to strive to the limit of what they can achieve.

The challenges are immense and formidable then for any composer who sets themselves up to compose music that expresses such aspirations. For Gluck his musical expression of the myth could be seen as about reestablishing some kind of order, for Birtwistle it's grappling with the intangible mysteries of time, memory and myth (among many other ideas), but what is important, perhaps evidently, is the power of music to express the deepest and most noble of human sentiments. As far as Ian Wilson's revisiting of the myth for our times in Orpheus Down (2021), one must wonder how much of a role the impact of the COVID pandemic played consciously or unconsciously in confronting the reality of omnipresent death with the need to strive for immortality through music. There is some measure of folly in such an endeavour, but the artist has to be prepared to take those risks, remain defiant and free of doubt about overcoming the many obstacles put in their way. One element that is common in the musical expression of all those works, which is I suppose common in any form of musical expression whether it's opera drama or otherwise, is the capacity it opens up for musical storytelling, mood and individual expression.

We get that not only in Ian Wilson’s composition, but also in how the performance of that work employs just two instruments to express everything that needs to be expressed in Orpheus’s journey through the darkest of experiences. What is most notable here is not the absence of singing - you don't necessarily need words or pictures to tell a story - but the choice of musical voices used and how they express the very same experience endured by Orpheus; dark percussive and earthy double bass, the airy deep bass clarinet. Gluck might have tried to reform and reset how opera might more effectively work its unique magic, but he inevitably had to make concessions to expectations of the times. Wilson has no such restrictions imposed other than self limitations to be as direct and expressive as possible with the right choice of elements and minimum of means.

Paradoxically, Wilson's lack of voice and reduced instrumentation in Orpheus Down gives Orpheus an even greater voice. You could see the musical melodic quality of the bass clarinet as his voice (what wind instrument could be as lyrical for the voice of Orpheus?) and the double bass his dramatic progress, or see the blending of both as a representation of the struggle to reconcile the Apollonian and the Dionysian sides of human nature. The way the instruments are used come to embody this dualistic struggle to overcome the limitations of earthly existence with the imperfection and chaos of death and aspire to surpass the capacity of man to assert order and meaning, striving to achieve immortality in a greater spiritual realm through his art, his music, his creativity. Without words, Wilson's music gives Orpheus a greater physical presence, as well as evoking the higher experience he undergoes.

In the opening Mourning Song however we witness Orpheus initially unable to give voice to his loss. Dario Calderone’s double bass is restricted to the extended techniques of tapping and the rubbing of strings, like the body broken down by grief, rain falling around him. The bass clarinet of Gareth Davis is like a sobbing, the voice slowly trying to give expression to that physical experience and, just as importantly, strive to find a way to overcome it. Evidently the route Orpheus takes is not the common one, and in the subsequent track The Crossing we hear the creak of Charon’s oar, the ferryman even humming a melody as he goes about his eternal task. It's a lovely touch, quite unexpected and haunting.

The journey started, the progression and development of the work continues with Orpheus beginning his Descent down into Hades and across the subsequent parts. It tracks that uncommon but entirely human reaction to overcome the trials and the torment of the experience of loss and bereavement and emerge greater from it. Sentinels then is potentially a literal encounter with many headed Cerberus or a battle with his own fears, Orpheus emerging triumphant in a short melody of optimism that he may be able to succeed in his endeavour, but it's only a brief respite until he comes up to the audibly formidable entrance to Hades in At The Gates. The spirits he encounters there not unexpectedly means that Passing Ghosts is simultaneously an airy song of shifting sounds and sudden shocks.

There's consequently a lot of darkness of this journey through Hades in Orpheus Down and not a great deal of light, but there is something resolute nonetheless in the protagonist's firmness of purpose, anchored by the double bass introduction to Entreaty and the lyrical enchantment of the lines of Davis’s beautiful bass clarinet. The ambition however becomes increasingly strained as Orpheus brings Eurydice upwards in Towards the Light. The Losing Again while traumatic however does not feel as hopeless as it might, rather a sense of resignation to the inevitability of the enterprise's failure. It is not however without recompense of sort for the ambition in seeking to break the bonds of physical human limitations. Although Wilson’s musical evocation of the myth retains the original outcome of Orpheus paying the ultimate price for his transgression of the laws of nature and the gods, To Sing Forever does not provide the false happy ending demanded by the conventions of 18th century opera of Gluck’s time, but rather, as in Stefano Landi's La Morte d'Orfeo (1619), the bard is torn to pieces by the Maenads. Ending on an unresolved note, the head of Orpheus however continues to sing to us down through the ages, an inspiration to Ian Wilson and no doubt others in the future.

Produced by Ian Wilson, recorded by Gareth Davis and engineered and mastered by Lazar Arsović, the sound recording on this Farpoint CD and the High Resolution download of Orpheus Down is astonishingly good. The bass clarinet and thrumming double bass resonate deeply with detail and clarity. There is no obvious applied reverb or use of natural spacial ambience of the recording studio, no sense of silence being used to playing a role, the music of just two instruments creating it own fullness of presence.

External links: Orpheus Down

TERRAIN Festival of New Music (Belfast, 2024)

TERRAIN Festival of New Music

New Horizons Music, 2024

Ian Wilson, Liza Lim, Ivan Moody, Greg Caffrey, Jane O’Leary, Daniel Kessner, Ioana Petcu-Colan, Ashling Agnew, David McCann, Lina Andonovska, David Lyttle, Cathal Roche

The Accidental Theatre, Belfast - 18 May 2024

Although every pound in arts funding has to be fought for in the face of cuts and a cost of living crisis, we are fortunate in Northern Ireland to at least have tireless organisations promoting new, vital, experimental and cutting-edge new music. There are many important composers and rarely performed works of 20th century music that are rarely heard after their premiere, but it is important for the sake of musical progression and creativity to revisit these works and introduce them to a new public. The commission of original new works is just as important and fortunately, though initiatives north and south of the border, we also have a number of superb composers in Ireland, far more than we have outlets for their work to be heard.

Which is why it is important that composer and Artistic Director Ian Wilson has started another new music festival TERRAIN almost 10 years after the last the short-lived contemporary music festival TEMPERED was first presented over 4 days in 2015 and 2016 at the Crescent Arts Centre and a number of other venues. The inaugural one-day TERRAIN Festival of New Music might be a more modest proposal in scale, but in the range of music selected and the quality of performers gathered for three concerts at the Accidental Theatre in Belfast and with the support of the Arts Council NI, Moving on Music and the Contemporary Music Centre, there is ambition here that can surely be built upon 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the earlier noon or afternoon concerts in the festival, missing the chance to hear some music from significant modern and contemporary composers that you will be hard pressed to see programmed elsewhere or even find recordings of much of their work. This included a great selection of pieces from such luminaries as Michael Finnissy, Morton Feldman, Elliott Carter, Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders, Dai Fujikura, Kaija Saariaho as well as new works by Irish and local composers.

The musicians performing across the day are also among the best Ireland has to offer, each of them with a solid grounding and experience - and love for - contemporary music. Ioana Petcu-Colan is leader of the Ulster Orchestra, while flautist Ashling Agnew and cellist David McCann are local contemporary music specialists who have been regularly performing works by many of the above named composers in Belfast over the last decade as part of the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. Australian flautist Lina Andonovska is a new name to me but has an impressive international profile, while David Lyttle and Cathal Roche are both familiar figures on the Irish jazz and improvised music scene.

The evening performance of inaugural TERRAIN Festival of New Music opened with three solo cello performances by David McCann. Far from being a low-key introduction to the evening's performances, McCann almost stole the show with a performance of Liza Lim's Invisibility, but before that he showed the variety and virtuosity of solo cello works with pieces by Ivan Moody and Greg Caffrey. "O tower wreathed in gold" by Ivan Moody, who died earlier this year at the age of only 59, might not be one of his liturgical works - Moody was also an Eastern Orthodox priest - but it felt like there was a spiritual element pervading this beautiful short piece, performed warmly without any religious solemnity. 

I'm familiar with Greg Caffrey's work, finding them enjoyable, full of ideas and interesting techniques and references, particularly his ensemble pieces composed as Artistic Director of the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. As enjoyable as they are in the moment, they never seem to linger for me personally, and that was also the case with "Vigour, Rigour, Jigger". An intense piece in three short movements that require a lot of concentration, skill and technique - which McCann has plenty of - the first section signed-off unexpectedly by an impromptu car horn heard outside that seemed to fit with the fun tone of the work. It was a well-chosen piece that provided contrast and variety and complemented the other two works in this set.

Australian composer Liza Lim describes her exploratory solo cello piece "Invisibility" as one where "the cello also plays the musician". It's hard to imagine David McCann having anything but complete control of his cello in the drive, intensity and fluctuations of this remarkable piece, but there are indeed a number of invisible forces that produce unexpected results, Invisibility requiring not just the use of a regular bow, but a second bow with the hair wrapped around the wood. With its unusual tuning and scratchy complexities the sounds produced are extraordinary, as is the showmanship of playing the final segment with both bows simultaneously in both hands. I've heard this work before, but seeing it performed live is a revelation.

Which is what this is all about really. Live music performances give the audience an opportunity to really engage with the beauty and complexities of works that otherwise might seem formidable and inaccessible. It was just such an experience, as well as another example of thoughtful programming and musicianship, that made the violin and flute duos performed by Ioana Petcu-Colan violin and Aisling Agnew work so well together in performance. The two pieces by Irish-American and American composers at either end were contrasting but complementary, Jane O’Leary’s "A Winter Sketchbook" all icy fragility in the call and response interaction between flute and violin, while Daniel Kessner’s "Nuance" used a similar style, but with a warmer character with a hint of Appalachian bluegrass on the violin that perfectly rounded out this performance, the two separated by a short ethereal Toru Takemitsu piece originally composed for two flutes.

Another facet of new music that is often overlooked - which also requires specialised musicians - is improvised music. New music doesn't came any newer than being composed as it is performed in the moment. It takes incredible skill on the instrument and the ability to listen and respond, and that was in evidence with the remarkable musicianship and creativity of saxophonist Cathal Roche and drummer David Lyttle, both experienced jazz musicians and composers, forming an impressive trio with flautist Lina Andonovska, who introduced her contrabass flute into the performance. This was no free jazz onslaught however, the opening breathy flute introduction by Andronovska developing into an improvised piece not that far removed from the kind of meticulously scored works composed by Salvatore Sciarrino. Roche opened another section with a melody somewhere between Arabian and Irish folk expanded upon by the other two musicians with wonderful interplay. A final 'encore' opened by Andronovska took the music much closer to the free improvisation jazz world but always there was a sense of purpose of creativity, control, listening and responsiveness to each other as well as consideration for their audience.

In such choices in the music programming and the musicians, the inaugural TERRAIN Festival of New Music - what I managed to catch of it - seemed to take this idea of programming a wide variety of adventurous new music and presenting it in an accessible format as something of a mission statement. Even the Accidental Theatre has an intimacy and close familiarity that commands attention and engagement with the performers and the music. This an impressive start to a new venture that - along with the work of The Belfast Ensemble, the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, Sonorities and Moving on Music's Brilliant Corners Festival - feels like it has something vital to contribute to the local contemporary music and arts scene.

External links: New Horizons Music, Contemporary Music Centre, Moving on Music