Phonica: Seven

Phonica: Seven

Monday 27 November 2017
7.30pm 
Boys School, Smock Alley Theatre
Admission: €7.00 / €5.00

with
Anna Jordan
Doireann Ní Ghríofa
The Quiet Club
Mark Tokar
Nerys Williams
Jona Xhepa

Phonica: Seven features performances from a range of vibrant, award-winning poets, musicians and artists with international outlooks and reputations working in the fields of electronic music, contemporary multilingual poetry, jazz composition, sound art, improvisation and theatrics, classical vocals, broken narratives, and more.

Phonica is a series of linked events rooted in Word and Sound and with an emphasis on multiformity and the experimental. Conceived, programmed and hosted since early 2016 by Christodoulos Makris and Olesya Zdorovetska, Phonica aims to explore compositional and performative ideas and to encourage a melting pot of audiences and artists from across artforms.

Featured Artists:

Anna Jordan is no stranger to creating intriguing soundscapes and conjuring moods through music. Jordan belongs to a new generation of musicians to have emerged in recent years that beautifully blur the fault lines between different genres of music, creating new hybrids that defy easy categorisation. "The accessibility and beauty of She Dances is nothing if not a genuine musical success on every level." -Stephen Murphy (GoldenPlec). "Dust is a magical find, that listening to the four tracks in this album, does not only enliven the senses, but also the spirit. Anna Jordan's porcelain sound walks the fine line between delicacy and curiosity, leaving the audience floating in a cloud of musical bliss."-Frostwire. "Drawing from a broad sonic palette, SELK’s raw unshackled songs possess an inherent power which prove mesmerising in a live environment."- Hotpress. "The achingly plaintive ‘Sweet One’ sees Anna solo at the piano, her poignant vocal a thing of true beauty. Elsewhere the quirky and playful ‘Been So Long’ and the exquisite rippling aural layers of ‘My Only Friend’ showcase SELK’s versatility. Tonight’s fare defies categorisation, covering a plethora of genres and styles. The emotional potency and avant garde textures of final track ‘Beast’ bring to mind both PJ Harvey and David Byrne at moments." -Hotpress

Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a bilingual writer whose books explore birth, death, desire and domesticity.  Awards for her writing include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Michael Hartnett Prize, and the Ireland Chair of Poetry bursary. She frequently participates in cross-disciplinary collaborations, fusing poetry with film, dance, music, and visual art. Recent/forthcoming commissions include work for The Poetry Society (Britain), RTÉ Radio 1, University College Cork, and The Arts Council/Crash Ensemble. Her fourth book is Oighear (Coiscéim, 2017).

Formed in 2006, The Quiet Club (Danny McCarthy and Mick O’Shea) have met with considerable success and have become recognised as one of Ireland’s leading sound art improvisation groups. They have toured extensively in Ireland and have played at festivals in UK, Germany, Poland, Canada, China , USA and Japan. Recently they appeared at World Expo (Shanghai), Static (Liverpool) I & E Festival (Dublin), Mobius (Boston), Harvestworks (New York), Black Iris Gallery (Richmond, Virginia). They took part in an extensive tour to USA last year. They frequently play together with guests, which in the past have included Mark Wastell, Stephen Vitiello, Steve Roden, Jed Spear, John Godfrey, Harry Moore, Iarla O’Lionard , David Toop, and many others. The Quiet Club continue to push the boundaries of sound making and listening by employing a wide range of sound making devices ranging from stones, homemade instruments, electronics, amplified textures, Theremins, field recordings, etc. Their first CD Tesla was released on Farpoint Recordings and is now a collectors item. A track of their’s appeared on WIRETAPPER 23 the compilation that accompanies the WIRE magazine and their work was featured in a recent article in the magazine. They regularly appeared on Bernard Clarke’s radio programme NOVA on Lyric FM. A major exhibition 'Strange Attractor' featuring their work took place in the Crawford Gallery Cork in April 2011. A book and DVD of this work was launched last year and they made two London appearances to co-inside with the launch at the Pigeon Wing Galley and the renown Café Oto. An e-book of their American tour is also available from Farpoint. In 2016 they were awarded a major funded residency by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to spend two months in the Rauschenberg Foundation Studio’s in Captiva, Florida. Whilst there they recorded their new CD No Meat No Bone which has just been released by Farpoint Recordings. The new CD comes  in a 7” gatefold cover which also contains especially written texts and photographs. It comes in a strictly limited edition of 147 signed and numbered copies. Early in 2017 the took part in an extensive Irish tour funded by Music Network where the appeared alongside the duo crOw (Ian Wilson and Cathal Roche) as a follow up to their release as the quiet crow flies also available from Farpoint. “The brilliance of the Quiet Club, the Cork-based entity of Danny McCarthy and Mick O'Shea, is best apprehended live. Their CD, Tesla, is fascinating and enjoyable, but all the more so after watching their performance at the Goethe Institute in Dublin” - Seán Ó Máille, Journal of Music Vol. 1 No. 2.

Mark Tokar is the first Ukrainian musician who played at the prestigious Chicago Jazz Festival and a key figure in the Ukrainian free jazz scene. He teaches at the Lviv School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture, Mark studied under Professor Jacek Niedzela at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in 2006, took part in the Krakow Jazz Workshop under M.Parkinson in 2002-2004. During 2005-2006 he worked as an Art Director of the Ukrainian-Polish Jazz Bez festival. In particular, he organised a series of Metro Jazz Philharmonic musical performances in Lviv. Mark has performed with Ken Vandermark, Bobby Few, Perry Robinson, Steve Swell, Michael Zerang, Tim Daisy, Dave Rempis, Roberta Piket, Fred Frith (USA), Klaus Kugel, Arkadij Shylkloper (Germany), Petras Vishniauskas (Lithuania), Mirchea Tiberian (Romania), Mazzol, Mikolaj Trzaska, Waclaw Zimpel, Piotr Baron, Kazimierz Jonkisz (Poland), Jurij Jaremczuk (Ukraine), Magnus Broo, Per-Ake Holmlander (Sweden), and Mark Sanders (England). Mark plays in Ken Vandermark’s international project “Resonance”, groups Undivided, Five Spot, Four, Varpaj, and Yatoku. He is the leader of the international projects Leo’m’art, Mark Tokar’s Quintet and Avtokar.

Nerys Williams’ first volume of poetry Sound Archive (Seren, 2011) won the Irish Strong prize in 2012, and was nominated for the Forward first volume prize. Her second volume Cabaret has just been published by New Dublin Press. She was recently poet in residence at the International House of Literature Passa Porta, Brussels as part of the Welsh Government’s Poetry of Loss programme. She lectures in American Literature at University College Dublin.

Currently based in Dublin, Jona Xhepa was born in Albania and grew up in Canada. Her work encompasses short fiction, music and comedy, and  is currently working on a projected radio show. Interested in broken, comedic and skewed narratives, and the growing borders between humanity and nature, she has been published in gorse, The Incubator, The Moth, and The Galway Review, and has performed as part of Listen At sonic arts series as well as briefly curating The Lestrygonian Sessions, a salon bringing together literature, comedy and science.


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Phonica acknowledges generous funding support from The Arts Council of Ireland under its Festivals and Events Scheme.