A gig held at The Cube on Monday 26th January. The event starts at 19:30.
A new year’s evening of traditional & improvised chamber music.
“Cuar is redefining the possibilities of Irish traditional music and taking it into haunting, imaginatively fertile new terrain” Ian Patterson, All About Jazz
Cuar are a chamber jazz & traditional music ensemble exploring the compositions of flautist & double bassist Neil Ó Lochlainn from Clare, Ireland.
A searching acoustic approach that stretches and dissolves distinctions between composition & improvisation within Irish traditional music, chamber classical, South Indian Carnatic music & jazz.
Neil draws from a deep well of listening and study; from the traditional music of his county Clare, the fiddle playing of Tommy Potts & Martin Hayes, sean-nós singing and uilleann pipe music to Carnatic Indian classical and the stillness & shaped compositions of Morton Feldman, the folk classical repertoire of Béla Bartók and even downtown jazz adventurism.
For this tour & latest album, Cuar is a trio made with two equally captivating musicians, saxophone & clarinetist Sam Comerford & fiddle player Ultan O’ Brien. Originally from Dublin, Sam is active across Europe’s jazz and improvised music scene, including representing Ireland for two years in the European Saxophone Ensemble. Alongside experimental film & music composition, Ultan released his acclaimed debut album last year, Dancing the Line on Nyahh Records, and has a rich line of collaborations including Martin Green (Lau), Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, John Francis Flynn & Laura Jurd.
Cuar have released three albums, including 2022’s Umhaill, which was an Irish Times album of the year. Their most recent work, Tairseach (liminal space), is an imaginative musical conversation with the great fiddle player Tommy Potts’ solo album The Liffey Banks.
“Neil has an instinct and a feel for different strands of music that allows him to create uncompromised musical worlds that speak with real depth and authenticity” - Martin Hayes (The Gloaming)
Harpist Rhodri Davies has been immersed in improvisation, musical experimentation, composition and contemporary classical performance for several decades. With an ever curious & open approach, Rhodri moves through countless sound worlds, across borders both imagined & actual, and brings the harp into new musical territories.
He is one of the leading players in composition and free improvisation and has amassed a diverse catalogue of over 60 recordings including work by Cornelius Cardew, collaborations with Hen Ogledd, David Toop, Max Eastley, David Sylvian, John Butcher, Derek Bailey & Angharad Davies and has had compositions for him by leading avant-garde composers Eliane Radigue, Mieko Shiomi, Phill Niblock & Christian Wolff.
For the last fifteen years Rhodri has been closely associated with the pioneering composer Eliane Radigue performing a number of her pieces. She composed OCCAM I for him in 2011, the first in an ongoing series of solo and ensemble pieces for individual instrumentalists in which a performer’s personal performance technique and particular relationship to their instrument function as the compositional material of the piece. Rhodri’s latest release of Eliane’s work is the live ensemble performance of Asymptote Versatile (1963-64).
“electrifying, destroying, and rediscovering some of its arcane forms” The Quietus
Renowned trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist & composer Pete Judge, of Get The Blessing, Three Cane Whale & JOW, amongst many others, opens the evening with a rare solo trumpet set. Stately trumpet lines of lament & renewal which share the air of Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen. A chamber folk music drawing on West Country landscape and the natural world with a delicate focus.
“sounds somewhere between the late Don Cherry and the UK’s Harry Beckett” -John Fordham, The Guardian
Ewen MacIntyre is a Scottish unaccompanied singer, story teller and versed in the sean-nós tradition too. A strong participant in Bristol song circles & traditional sessions for the last number of years, Ewen's unhurried presence, wit & low drawl takes the floor and echoes balladeers from a long, long tradition.
Entry requirements: 18+
“Cuar is redefining the possibilities of Irish traditional music and taking it into haunting, imaginatively fertile new terrain” Ian Patterson, All About Jazz
Cuar are a chamber jazz & traditional music ensemble exploring the compositions of flautist & double bassist Neil Ó Lochlainn from Clare, Ireland.
A searching acoustic approach that stretches and dissolves distinctions between composition & improvisation within Irish traditional music, chamber classical, South Indian Carnatic music & jazz.
Neil draws from a deep well of listening and study; from the traditional music of his county Clare, the fiddle playing of Tommy Potts & Martin Hayes, sean-nós singing and uilleann pipe music to Carnatic Indian classical and the stillness & shaped compositions of Morton Feldman, the folk classical repertoire of Béla Bartók and even downtown jazz adventurism.
For this tour & latest album, Cuar is a trio made with two equally captivating musicians, saxophone & clarinetist Sam Comerford & fiddle player Ultan O’ Brien. Originally from Dublin, Sam is active across Europe’s jazz and improvised music scene, including representing Ireland for two years in the European Saxophone Ensemble. Alongside experimental film & music composition, Ultan released his acclaimed debut album last year, Dancing the Line on Nyahh Records, and has a rich line of collaborations including Martin Green (Lau), Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, John Francis Flynn & Laura Jurd.
Cuar have released three albums, including 2022’s Umhaill, which was an Irish Times album of the year. Their most recent work, Tairseach (liminal space), is an imaginative musical conversation with the great fiddle player Tommy Potts’ solo album The Liffey Banks.
“Neil has an instinct and a feel for different strands of music that allows him to create uncompromised musical worlds that speak with real depth and authenticity” - Martin Hayes (The Gloaming)
Harpist Rhodri Davies has been immersed in improvisation, musical experimentation, composition and contemporary classical performance for several decades. With an ever curious & open approach, Rhodri moves through countless sound worlds, across borders both imagined & actual, and brings the harp into new musical territories.
He is one of the leading players in composition and free improvisation and has amassed a diverse catalogue of over 60 recordings including work by Cornelius Cardew, collaborations with Hen Ogledd, David Toop, Max Eastley, David Sylvian, John Butcher, Derek Bailey & Angharad Davies and has had compositions for him by leading avant-garde composers Eliane Radigue, Mieko Shiomi, Phill Niblock & Christian Wolff.
For the last fifteen years Rhodri has been closely associated with the pioneering composer Eliane Radigue performing a number of her pieces. She composed OCCAM I for him in 2011, the first in an ongoing series of solo and ensemble pieces for individual instrumentalists in which a performer’s personal performance technique and particular relationship to their instrument function as the compositional material of the piece. Rhodri’s latest release of Eliane’s work is the live ensemble performance of Asymptote Versatile (1963-64).
“electrifying, destroying, and rediscovering some of its arcane forms” The Quietus
Renowned trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist & composer Pete Judge, of Get The Blessing, Three Cane Whale & JOW, amongst many others, opens the evening with a rare solo trumpet set. Stately trumpet lines of lament & renewal which share the air of Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen. A chamber folk music drawing on West Country landscape and the natural world with a delicate focus.
“sounds somewhere between the late Don Cherry and the UK’s Harry Beckett” -John Fordham, The Guardian
Ewen MacIntyre is a Scottish unaccompanied singer, story teller and versed in the sean-nós tradition too. A strong participant in Bristol song circles & traditional sessions for the last number of years, Ewen's unhurried presence, wit & low drawl takes the floor and echoes balladeers from a long, long tradition.
Entry requirements: 18+
Other experimental gigs
— The Tobacco Factory
jazz
swing
new orleans jazz
new orleans blues
— The Mount Without
folk
workshops & classes
family
food & drink
festival
