RESONATE: Elizabeth Hilliard

RESONATE: Elizabeth Hilliard

  • 26 November, 8pm
  • The Dock, Carrick-On-Shannon
RESONATE: Elizabeth Hilliard

The culmination of the second iteration of music Network's RESONATE Residency programme, this concert will showcase new work developed out of a collaboration between soprano Elizabeth Hilliard and composer Gráinne Mulvey.

Elizabeth and Gráinne have worked together on several projects in the past. For their residency here in the Dock they are writing a piece that will provide a comic commentary on the jargon and everyday speech to be found in spam. Scored for electronics by Grainne it is intended that the piece will be presented with live voice and tape.

The new piece will be paired with Phonology Garden, an earlier work written by Gráinne for Elizabeth which is on her debut album Sea to the West. It incorporates phonetics, some sentences and is an exploration of the sonic capabilities of the voice. The remainder of the show will be performances of: Rachael Lavelle’s Green Goddess (for performer, electronics, blender and ingredients) and David Bremner’s Since the Appearance in a new version for voice and electronics.

About RESONATE:

The Music Network RESONATE 2022 initiative awards six individual musicians €8,000 to support and facilitate the making of new work and creative partnerships. RESONATE provides the artists with the time and space to cultivate new sounds which may never have been brought to life otherwise. Audiences will have opportunities to enjoy the new material created through live concert performances in November and via online video content shared on social media platforms shortly afterwards.

Music Network Artist Residencies. Presented in partnership with glór, Ionad Cultúrtha, National Opera House, Triskel Arts Centre, The Dock and Regional Cultural Centre.

Highly regarded for her imaginative and dramatic interpretations of new music, soprano Elizabeth Hilliard will work with composer Gráinne Mulvey to create a new, comic work for voice and tape.

Inspired by “spam” - those ads for medical products that seem to appear in the middle of random text on the internet - it will be presented alongside existing work.

Gráinne Mulvey
Gráinne Mulvey

Irish Soprano Elizabeth Hilliard is an exceptional singer based in Dublin and is widely regarded as an imaginative and dramatic interpreter of new music. She has worked in close collaboration with composers including Gráinne Mulvey, Jennifer Walshe, Christopher Fox and David Bremner and champions Irish art, music and composers, achieving recognition in the US and UK as well as her native country. She has been supported in her career by bursaries from Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Creative Ireland, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and South Dublin County Council.

Current projects include Crushbar: a collaboration with visual artist Louise Manifold, composer Evangelia Rigaki and percussionist Richard O’Donnell, Pomegranate, a long duration installation by Evangelia Rigaki with text by Marina Carr, Slow Recognition, an experimental opera by David Bremner, directed by Hélène Montague.

In 2021, she presented How The World Begins Again, a short feature series for RTÉ lyric fm on women composers and sound artists from Ireland.

Gráinne Mulvey is a composer of acoustic and electronic music. She also likes to collaborate with other art forms particularly video, dance, art installations and liaise with improv groups.

She has written for many soloists such as soprano, Elizabeth Hilliard, cellist Martin Johnson, principal cellist of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, clarinettist Paul Roe, flautist Joe O’Farrell, pianists Thérese Fahy, Nathalia Milstein, (winner of the International Dublin Piano Festival 2014,) and Matthew Schellhorn, Duncan Honeybourne, to name but a few. Ensembles such as Concorde, Hard Rain Soloists Ensemble, ACME in Chicago, Ensemble MISE-EN, Crash Ensemble, Platypus Ensemble and orchestras: RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, The Northern Sinfonia, UK, and the Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra have championed her music.

Her music has been performed, recorded, broadcast and published across the globe. Releases of her music on CD labels include Metier, Divine Art Recordings, PARMA, AUDIOR, RMN and for various festival promotional CDs. She has won many awards and has represented Ireland at the ISCM World Music Days in 2008, 2009 and the International Rostrum of Composers in 1994, 2006 and 2015. She is a member of Aosdána.

Her music is published by Babel Scores, France, Prairie Dawg Press, NY, CMC, Ireland.

Sample Work
Previous work by Elizabeth Hilliard and Gráinne Mulvey include Great Women premiered as part of Dublin International Chamber Music Festival, directed by Hélène Montague and John Comiskey at the State Apartments, Dublin Castle.

Other Events