Tailte cré-umha (Bronze Lands)

For pipe organ & soundsystem with lightshow
Running time: 50mins

Sydney Town Hall grand pipe organ (64ft)
for Sydney Festival 21 January 2020

Buy the live concert recording

Premiere: St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, Ireland,
20 & 21 June 2018 for Cork Midsummer Festival

[For bookings & further details contact]

 

Buy "Bronze Lands (Tailte Cré-Umha) - Live at Sydney Festival 2020" - part of "Beyond Enclosures" 3CD set

Buy "Tailte Cré-Umha (Bronze Lands) - Live at Cork Midsummer Festival" digital release here

REVIEWS for Bronze Lands at Sydney Festival:
"Designed for the physical space of the hall and the pipe organ itself, it created a unique aural experience." - Eastside Radio
"when the organ sang, so did our whole bodies." - Building and Body as Instrument - the AU review
"an overwhelming multi-sensory experience"- Night Writes

Tailte Cré-Umha (Bronze Lands) is a solo performance for pipe organ & soundsystem developed during two months exclusive after-hours access to Ireland's largest pipe organ in St Fin Barre's Cathedral Cork, along with a range of turn-of-the-century unmodernised pipe organs across Cork and Cornwall. The world premiere was in 2018 at St Fin Barre's Cathedral over two nights for Cork Midsummer Festival – produced by Curgenven including the accompanying lighting. In 2020 the Australian premiere saw a sold-out performance at Sydney Festival on Sydney Town Hall’s 64ft grand pipe organ. Both concerts were recorded and will be released on Recorded Fields Editions in 2021 with worldwide distribution by Cargo (UK).

The piece combines live pipe organ with a soundsystem which allows audiences to hear two pipe organs together - each in different tunings - effectively a piece for 4 hands (and feet), sounding together to create a physical and architectural experience. The live part on the venue’s pipe organ in standard tuning works with and against the part heard through the soundsystem (which comprises tracker-action pipe organ recordings made in Cornwall & Ireland to create custom-tunings). The piece is suitable for socially-distanced and audiences in venues with a suitable pipe organ and power for lighting and soundsytem.  

The basis for the piece's score and structure draws on Ireland’s relations with Cornwall and Mediterranean Europe. 5000 years ago, coming into the Bronze Age, Ireland’s copper and Cornwall’s tin traversed the continent to make bronze. Tailte cré-umha uses this navigation of the landscape itself as the score as those people and materials travel land, sea, sky and Europe at a time of change.

Tailte cré-umha (Bronze Lands) is the live follow-up to pipe organ works on SIRÈNE - given four stars by MOJO magazine (UK) saying it has "deep satisfying weight... the results gull the senses"; described as "astounding" by FACT mag (USA), "remarkable music" by The Wire Magazine (UK) and "evocative... expansive organ work" by the Guardian (AU).

Supported by: Cork Midsummer Festival, St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork City Council Arts Office, St Mary's COI Marmullane, North Presentation Chapel, Rise-Up Soundsystem