ENTERTAINMENT: Castlebar students team up with acclaimed composer for new show

Music Network is bringing a new show by groundbreaking Irish vocalist, improviser and composer Jennifer Walshe to the Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, next month. Entitled ‘Oscailt’, it has been described as ‘an extraordinary multi-media composition for sound and video’.
Developed by Walshe and her ensemble (soprano Elizabeth Hilliard, saxophonist Nick Roth and multi-instrumentalist Panos Ghikas) with the help of secondary school students from across the country, ‘Oscailt’ draws on their experience of growing up in a world mediated by technology, incorporating installation, film, improvisation, artificial intelligence (AI) and live performance.
As technology continues to change the way we live in Ireland – phone towers planted next to holy wells, Facebook employees in data centres tending to beehives in a nod to medieval monks – Walshe and her ensemble will take us on a musical journey that not only reflects on our technological past but also inspires us to dream of the futures we would like to construct.
Students from Loreto Abbey Secondary School in Dalkey, Patrician Secondary School in Newbridge, Limerick Educate Together Secondary School, Glanmire Community College in Cork and Davitt College in Castlebar will work with Walshe and her team of musicians over a number of weeks.
Through a series of workshops together, they will explore and create sounds using the instrumental, vocal and computer improvisation techniques that will be incorporated into the final live performances. The students will then join Walshe and her ensemble on stage to perform some of their co-created material for audiences at their local venues (the Linenhall in Davitt College’s case).
For this project, Walshe has been filming at iconic sites across the country including Valentia Island, The Hill of Tara, the Giant’s Causeway and Silicon Docks in Dublin. Oscailt will incorporate visuals and electromagnetic sound recorded at these sites. The composer’s fascination with AI and all its applications for music and performance will also be evident in the piece, transforming the Giant’s Causeway into a towering mass of marshmallows among other things.
Described by The Irish Times as ‘the most original compositional voice to emerge from Ireland in the past 20 years’, Walshe’s compositions and performances have been commissioned, broadcast and presented all over the world.
Currently Professor of Composition at the University of Oxford, her 2020 album ‘A Late Anthology of Early Music Vol 1: Ancient to Renaissance’ was chosen as an album of the year by The Irish Times, The Wire and The Quietus. Earlier this year Walshe was announced as the University of Huddersfield’s Composer in Residence at hcmf// 2023, the UK’s leading festival of new and experimental music.
Oscailt will premiere at the Samuel Beckett Theatre on Tuesday, September 19, as part of this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival, before travelling to Kildare, Limerick and Cork. The tour will be rounded of by a special final performance at the Linenhall, Castlebar.

‘Oscailt’, featuring students from Davitt College, Castlebar, will be performed at The Linenhall Arts Centre on September 26 at 8pm. To book tickets, visit www.thelinenhall.com or contact the box office on 094 9023733.