“Echoes”, the 2025 instalment of the Louth Contemporary Music Festival
*** FEATURED REVIEWS ***
Astonishing musicianship brings Bernhard Lang’s iridescent microtonal worlds to life
What comes to mind when you think of echoes? The sound of your voice reverberating across a valley? The lingering, soupy effect of any loud music fading in a cathedral? The repetitions of minimalism? Acts of homage, maybe Ravel’s piano pieces “in the manner of” Borodin and
Chabrier? Schumann referencing Chopin in his Carnaval? The large canon of pieces reviving or reworking the styles of earlier periods?
Curated with Care in Dundalk - James Camien McGuiggan review
The Louth Contemporary Music Society’s nineteenth festival on 13–14 June featured works by composers as diverse as Bernhard Lang, Kevin Volans and Nico, as well as new works by Martin Smolka and Sarah Davachi. It carried the somewhat cryptic title ‘echoes’, which I initially ignored but to which I found myself returning as the festival went on.
Another successful LCMS festival still resounding as you made your way home.
As always, the Louth Contemporary Music Society managed to find a suitable title and theme for their annual festival of new music that, despite the remarkable variety of works performed, manages to gather everything neatly under a wide umbrella. More than that, Echoes also presents an interesting way to approach and consider the collection of the individual works in relation to each other and their place within that broad family of ‘new music’.
