Ailís Ní Ríain
East-West: Where morning is the seA
Ailís Ní Ríain [2020] Video and sound composition Duration: 12 mins
A meditation on time spent at sea where music and imagery allude to the grasp of the sea, lives beyond our imagination and the favour of viewpoints.
When you are living on a working ship, your cabin - if you do not share one - is your sole place of privacy. Yet, even there, the sounds and movements of your fellow ship crew and scientific colleagues drift in through the slight cabin partitions. Your port-hole becomes your solitary viewpoint to a world where everything often appears to remain the same, for it is always water. I was instantly captivated by the subtle and sometimes violent changes perceivable through this limiting, yet, limitless ‘viewpoint’.
The film is one long take from the port-hole in my Cabin on the RV Celtic Explorer on a sunny August afternoon in 2019. I composed the piece to the film’s timeline, closely shaping the sounds in parallel with the visuals. The musical composition includes snippets of hummed song together with a wide variety of sounds created inside a grand piano – percussion, slides, plucked strings, snippets of melody and keyboard sounds. All sounds – with the exception of the voice – come from one piano.
I’ve often thought that scientists and artists have much in common, especially with those of us exploring sound. In fact, I suspect there are many scientists who might well be more creative than some artists. Society requires both innovative scientists and innovative artists to drive forward new ways of thinking, doing, making and living. The work that I have done in my music installations (for unusual and/or historic spaces) have developed my interest in research-heavy projects with a broad range of outcomes [not just artistic]. These projects include a song for a decommissioned lighthouse, a 1:1 piece of music/text for a K6 red British telephone box, a street music installation for the area of Old Dublin City near the Contemporary Music Centre where Handel’s Messiah had its first performance and a piece for harp and 12 voices for a grade I listed castle keep in Pennine Lancashire based on the infamous Pendle Witch Trials of 1612. As with any artistic project, the outcome is often driven by the experience and is idea-led. Through conversation with fellow researchers on the vessel, and time to observe and think, I have no doubt would lead me to see the world differently and ideally begin a new journey into the deep.
Ailís Ní Ríain is an Irish contemporary classical composer who aims to produce work that challenges, provokes and engages. A regular collaborator with artists in other art-forms, her artistic interests are diverse and combined with an unwavering desire to develop her artistic practice with each new project or commission. In 2016 she was awarded the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Award for Composers.
Her music has been performed at London’s Purcell Room, The Royal Festival Hall, The National Concert Hall in Dublin, Carnegie Hall in New York, throughout Europe and in the USA as well as featured on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, RTÉ Lyric FM and RTÉ Television.