New Music Dublin 2018 was set to fill the National Concert Hall with the sound of cutting-edge, contemporary music from around the world and pack out the venue with eager audiences in March of this year. However, Mother Nature had other ideas, keeping us all tucked up indoors in the worst snowstorm in 36 years.
Not to be discouraged, festival director John Harris picked up the pieces, rebooted the festival and the aptly named 'New Music Dublin: Defrosted' takes place from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd with two free events on Culture Night. He spoke to Sean Rocks on Arena.
"We have salvaged quite a bit. The original was about 3 and a half days long and we're about 2 and a half days, so that's a fair chunk of stuff. We've got 2 main hall concerts, we've got quite a lot of the other bits and pieces around it."
John spoke to Sean about a rather unusual experience for the concert hall – the Stockhausen lock-in.
"Simon Smith who's a kind of Stockhausen uber pianist chap is coming to play Stockhausen's very last piano work, which is the third hour of 'Klang', which is his big 24-hour thing… The third hour is extended to 150 minutes… It's quite a concentrated listening thing but it will be very informal and Stockhausen's two wives have given us authority that if you wish to listen to it under the piano you can do so you can find your space in the hall"
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