Lara Gallagher

In this discursive lecture/demonstration/workshop Lara Gallagher discusses her new work for lovemusic collective and how technology has informed both her compositional decision making process and her collaborative involvement with the ensemble. This workshop is suitable for musicians, composers and concert-goers, or anyone with an interest in electronic music and how it is composed, or how technology can be integrated into composition and performance. Lara Gallagher writes:

“Returning to Ireland, I was reunited with the sea and decided that for this piece to make a series of instruments that use water to sound. The instrumentalists will play their traditional instruments and have specific structures/sonic sculptures designed for interaction outside of this. For example a flautist may use their flute to blow air into a shallow container of water, forming ripples which trigger max patches to read water levels subsequently affecting the sound – the resulting sound invoking water as a material instrument. The score will contain improvisatory segments and allow for performers to extend their abilities upon interaction with their designated sculpture.

This piece strives to harness and interrogate the condition of sound and the processes by which it operates in bodies of water. I’m interested in resonance, the interrelationship between human corporeality and the sea, water as nature vs water as culture – how can we use water and sound as a means of embodied connection, experimentation and creation?” (Lara Gallagher)

Lara Gallagher is an Irish sound artist and performer working across a number of mediums including interactive installation art, live electronic performance and theatre. She strives to create work that opens a kind of communication and interaction between performing and listening bodies so that human connections and reactions can be explored. She has performed and shared her work in various venues and locations across Ireland, the UK and Germany.

Having graduated from Music and Drama Studies at Trinity College Dublin in April 2019, she undertook a masters in Sound studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin. She has been commissioned by Crash Ensemble, Kirkos Ensemble, Glasshouse, Chatham Quartet, Offspring Ensemble, soprano Elizabeth Hilliard, saxophonist Nick Roth and has presented work at New Music Dublin and Lightmoves Festival.

Her frequent, notable collaborations include projects with Superpaua socially engaged theatre company, Immersive LDN, Taste in Your Mouth theatre and Sugarglass theatre. She has received funding for her projects from the Arts Council Ireland, Dublin County Councils and Music Network.

Her latest artistic venture has seen the creation of the Islo Collective, a multi medium art collective seeking to advocate for female and gender queer artists establishing a position at the forefront of innovative interdisciplinary performance and artistic production.

Music Current workshops are supported by the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin (www.cmc.ie). Composer participants resident on the island of Ireland, travelling from outside Dublin, can apply for a travel and subsistence bursary by contacting festival staff when attending workshop events, or by contacting info@dublinsoundlab.ie

This event is part of the Music Current Festival. See the full programme here.