Saturday 5 March

St Caimin, Church of Ireland, Mountshannon 7pm - 15€

Watershed is a new song cycle for voice and piano inspired by the natural bodies of water and land in Ireland’s midwest region and along the Atlantic coast. With music by renowned Irish composer Ailís Ní Ríain and text by Ballina-Killaloe resident, poet Jessica Brown, it is a song cycle inextricably rooted in place and in nature. Central to the song-texts—which are taken from Jessica’s superb collection, And Say (Revival Press, Limerick 2019)—are themes informed by the writer’s personal interaction with water and the surrounding landscapes in counties Clare and Tipperary: Holy Island, the hills of Moylussa and Tountinna overlooking Lough Derg, the dunes of Fanore, the Burren cliffs, and the forest paths of the Galtees and the Silvermines. Musicians Julie Comparini and Yonit Kosovske perform this new work as part of a contemporary Art Song programme titled Lough Derg 1 & 2, in which they present two song cycles, new and slightly older: Ailís Ní Ríain’s Watershed (2020) alongside Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs (1953) composed on texts by medieval monks and poets writing about Lough Derg in Donegal. Their music in this performance is interwoven with poetry readings by Jessica Brown. The Watershed song cycle was made possible through funding received from the Arts Council Music Commissions Award in 2020. The Watershed CD, produced by Now and Then Media, was released in November 2021 and features the song cycle, poetry readings, and field recordings of soundscapes along and near Lough Derg in County Clare.

Artists

Yonit Kosovske performs on piano and harpsichord as a soloist, chamber musician, and interdisciplinary artist. She is passionate about both sacred and secular music and is at home with repertoire from the Renaissance through New Music. She is especially active as a recitalist of duo repertoire for solo voice and keyboard, including early Italian monody, German Lieder, French Mélodie, and contemporary Art Song. Yonit is co-director of H.I.P.S.T.E.R. (Historically Informed Performance Series, Teaching, Education and Research) and of the Limerick Early Music Festival (LEMF), as well as artistic director of WAVE~LINKS—a video series exploring music and artisanry. Yonit is the author of “Historical Harpsichord Technique: Developing La douceur du toucher,” (Indiana University Press, 2011) and is a Lecturer of Music at the University of Limerick, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. Her recent awards include an Arts Council MusicCommissions Award (2020) for the new song cycle Watershed and an Agility Award (2021) for her forthcoming collaboration bridging early music and contemporary dance in a project titled “Rocking” investigating female power, lamentation, and rage through Tarquinio Merula’s Canzonetta spirituale sopra alla nanna. Yonit holds a doctorate from Indiana University, a master’s degree from San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University Mason Gross School for the Arts. She also studied at the Jerusalem (Rubin) Academy of Music and Dance and at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Originally from the United States, Yonit moved to Ireland in 2011 and currently lives in Birdhill, Co Tipperary.

Julie Comparini undertook professional stage acting training at a young age and later completed degrees in cognitive science/linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and in early music singing at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen. A specialist in early music, new music and multimedia theatre, Julie’s repertoire includes rare or newly re-discovered early operas, as well as interdisciplinary theatre pieces. In collaboration with pianist Yonit Kosovske, Julie has presented recitals of contemporary Art Song in both Ireland and in Germany, where they performed the song-cycle Games by Irish composer Ian Wilson and Poems of Love and the Rain by American composer Ned Rorem. As a concert and ensemble singer, Julie sang the title role in the modern premiere of Simon Mayrs Jacob a Labano fugiens and has performed under the direction of Olof Boman, Michi Gaigg, and Thomas Hengelbrock. Julie appears regularly with the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor and the Brechtlieder and “Heimatabend” performances at the Bremer Arbeitnehmerkammer and has sung more than 100 Bach cantatas as part of the project “Laudate-Cantate” at the Kirche Unser Lieben Frauen in Bremen. Julie’s academic work includes lectures, seminars, and translating Baroque song texts, as well as teaching voice and Renaissance notation.

Jessica Brown was born and raised in Texas and now lives in County Clare in Ireland with her husband and son. With an MA in English from Boston College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University, she has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Limerick. Among other publications, Jessica’s poetry collection And Say was published in 2019 with the Limerick-based Revival Press. Local poet Michael Durack, who gave the introduction for the launch, said the following words about And Say: “The setting for the most part is the mid-west of Ireland, a pastoral landscape, a timeless natural landscape of varying moods with the elements in a state of flux, in constant interaction with each other and with the poet’s inner landscape. It’s a fascinating world—dark forests, stormy seas, surface and underground water, and shifting colours, light, and shade. The range of flora is matched by the variety of fauna: in here you will find swallows, gulls, herons, a fox, dragonflies, fish jumping. The overall impression is of a brilliant kaleidoscope where nature is dynamic and sometimes menacing, but ultimately soothing and reassuring, a balm for the negative emotions of anger and anxiety.”

Ailís Ní Ríain was born in Cork, in the Republic of Ireland. She studied classical piano at The Cork School of Music and took an undergraduate music degree at University College Cork followed by studies at The University of York, Manchester University and The Royal Northern College of Music. In 2016 she was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Composer’s Award, the largest individual artist award in the UK. In 2018 she was shortlisted to represent Ireland at ISCM World Music Days in 2017 and 2018, and for the 2018 Annelie de Man Prix in the Netherlands. Ailís composes concert music, site-specific music installations, opera, and music-theatre. She often collaborates with artists working in other forms such as visual art, text, photography and illustration. Her compositions have been performed all over the world, including at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s Southbank, The National Concert Hall of Ireland, and Carnegie Hall, as well as on BBC Radio and RTE Radio. She is represented by The Contemporary Music Centre of Ireland.