Topographies – Francis Heery, Izumi Kimura, Shane Latimer, Elliott Murphy in Concert

The works in this concert began life as part of Topographies Festival, Berlin in May 2024. Topographies Festival was presented by Artistic Director Francis Heery in partnership with the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland and PAS Berlin as part of Zeitgeist Irland 24, an initiative of Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany. This event was in turn was a legacy from Francis Heery’s earlier collaborative work, “Towards a Soteriological Theory of Bog Bodies”, (for piano and electric guitar) which was developed for Music Current Festival 2023. So in a way, this programme is a home coming or sorts, and we are delighted to see this collaboration develop, travel, and return to Music Current Festival on its 10th anniversary.

Topographies can mean the physical contours of a landscape — the hollows, peaks or undulations that give places their indefinable but immediately perceptible sense of character. But there are inner topographies too, the contours of thought and feeling that places evoke in us, or the terrain of memory, narrative and imagination that defines our relationship with certain places and is shaped by our personal history and identity.

The three compositions express the composers’ interpretation of this theme in diverse ways, but they also share a particular commonality. The works were specifically written for the trio Izumi Kimura, Shane Latimer and Elliot Murphy, performers who are adept improvisors, which opened a further dimension to the composers, and encouraged a fluid overlapping between the structured organisation of the score and intuitive spontaneity of improvised music. The three composers, Francis Heery, Ellen King and Elliot Murphy have all been living in Germany for some time and were invited to write works based on the theme ‘topographies’ which focused on what Ireland and Irish culture meant to them as members of the Irish diaspora.