Composer Ed Bennett returns to New Music Dublin this year with the world premiere of All Earth Once Drowned, a powerful new work created in collaboration with poet Cherry Smyth and performed by a fresh incarnation of his renowned Decibel Ensemble.
Blending spoken word, electronics, and live instruments, the piece is a meditation on our changing relationship with the natural world — part lament, part call to action.
Ahead of the premiere, Ed spoke to us about the creative process, working with Cherry Smyth, and how carefully chosen musicians help shape the music from within.
All Earth Once Drowned interweaves Cherry Smyth’s text with your music. What was it that drew you to working with Cherry - and can you say which came first, the music or the words?
Cherry and I worked together before on Famished, a work dealing with the Irish famine and migration, so I knew we could work well together. For Famished the text definitely came first but for All Earth Once Drowned I devised the concept for the project, wrote quite a bit of the music, then there was text, then more music and then both text and music were refined and distilled to try and create a cohesive work.
I’m drawn to many things about Cherry’s writing but one of the main things for me is a kind of energy in the words, there is an immediacy that I like but also at times there is a fragile beauty. These are things I hope for in music as well.
You’re working with Decibel Ensemble for this. Is this "your band" (you’re both conductor and electronics-wrangler - and you’ve written the music) - and if so, how did you all come together? Is the line-up deliberate? How did you work with Cherry? Is every note written down, or is there improv in there too?
Ha! I suppose it is my band in that I bring the musicians together and invite specific people to play. I’ve been doing projects under the Decibel moniker for over 20 years now and I suppose it’s part of a DIY ethos I’ve always had. It’s great to work with orchestras and other established organisations, but it’s important for me to get my hands dirty as well and work with like-minded musicians. The line-up is very deliberate and I’ve worked with all of the musicians in some capacity over the years, they all bring something unique to the project and that’s why they are there. Choosing the right people is part of the composition process and I want them to enjoy working together as well.
The work is to some degree highlighting and commenting on what is going on, our changing environment, our relationship with the sea, it is part lament and part celebration.
I gave Cherry mock-ups of parts of the work so she could get a feel for the music that would be there, and then we rehearsed - timing is very important, where to leave space, etc. The work is fully scored with room for improvisation, some of the performers such as Tom Challenger or Steve Davis are highly regarded improvisers and I want them to be able to bring their experience and unique musicality into the music. All of the performers improvise here in some capacity, and I hope there is a kind of organic quality where the written score and improvised elements are seamless; rehearsal and time playing together helps this to happen.
Is All Earth Once Drowned a call to action on pressing environmental issues on the part of your listening audience, or is it more an expression of your own feelings about these issues? Is there a difference?
I think it’s all of these things. I would never tell an audience what to do or think. The work is to some degree highlighting and commenting on what is going on, our changing environment, our relationship with the sea, it is part lament and part celebration. It’s important to leave poetic space in the work and allow for interpretation, which I hope we have done.
In addition to your work with the Decibel Ensemble this year at NMD, you’re also premiering your new Piano Concerto with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. How does your approach differ when composing for one rather than the other?
Yes the concerto is a very different work. With Decibel, things are perhaps more raw and flexible, and certainly in All Earth Once Drowned there is room for improvisation as well. With the concerto, you have to be very careful and clear with every detail to facilitate the logistical and sonic challenges that an orchestral setting presents. Rehearsal time is often limited and you need to find ways to integrate the soloist with the orchestra and vice versa. This is a particular challenge here, as I’ve written the solo part not just for piano but for keyboard and toy piano which are tricky to balance but hopefully bring a twist to the format.
Conceptually, the concerto is much more abstract, in that is isn’t about anything but the music and maybe perhaps the piano itself and my relationship to it, especially as the soloist Xenia Pestova Bennett is my wife! It’s about form, structure, colour, energy. Whilst AEOD is definitely about something specific I think it’s also important to celebrate the abstract in art, to create a world and let the listener enter that world and let their own imaginations fire up. We need to protect this in art, we shouldn’t feel the need to explain the magic out of everything.
What are you up to now, and what are you thinking about for your next projects?
Specifically, I will be working on a substantial concert-length spatial work for voices and electronics and next year I’m working on a project for the Bang On a Can All Stars. I’m excited about both of these but also for more projects with Decibel, and I’m trying to get a large scale immersive work for large ensemble and improvisers off the ground, so if anyone would like to support this please let me know!
All Earth Once Drowned premieres on Friday 4th April at 9.30pm at The Complex Arts Centre, Smithfield, Dublin 7, as part of New Music Dublin, with buses available for ticketholders leaving from the National Concert Hall at 9pm - find out more here.
