Hilltown New Music Festival. The festival, situated on the grounds of Hilltown House, Castlepollard, has developed a name for presenting cutting-edge contemporary works in a beautiful outdoor rural setting.

 

This Friday 15 July, at 9pm on the Main Stage, the QME presents a programme of both familiar and new work. Featured are two ensemble classics, both commissioned in 2008 for the Quiet Music Festival: Shadow Lines by Alvin Lucier; and quiet leaves breathing by David Toop. Last October, a live performance of quiet leaves breathing was a central feature of a programme dedicated to QME and Toop on RTÉ Lyric FM’s ‘Nova’.  Irish composer Susan Geaney wrote Vacuum for the QME and has revised it especially for this performance; this is the premiere of its latest version. The final work in the programme is a ‘sonic meditation’ by Quiet Music Ensemble Artistic Director John Godfrey. Made up of a ‘walk-through’ sonic landscape and improvisation by QME and special guests, this is a work especially designed with the extraordinary spaces of the Hilltown House gardens in mind.