eye-blink (1) - Richard Barrett - (Premiere) Performed by Alinéa
In the face of the pandemic and sweeping cancellations of in-person festivals and concerts, The Alinéa Ensemble, a group of young musicians based in Boston, has curated “Everything But The Kitchen Sink” (EBTKS): a virtual summer festival.
“Everything But The Kitchen Sink” (EBTKS) features Zoom interviews with living composers paired with performances of their solo works by Alinéa members. Among these “Composers-in-(Their)-Residence” they have welcomed Richard Barrett.
In this particular episode Alinéa presents the world premiere of Richard Barrett’s “eye-blink (1)” .
“When they asked me to contribute, I decided to use the current situation as an opportunity to think of the collaborative process between composer and performers in a new way, by writing some material (ranging between precise notation and improvisational suggestions) for each of them to record individually, which I would then assemble and transform into a fixed media composition. The result is a binaural piece (to be heard on headphones) for baritone, violin, cello, contrabass, piano and percussion with electronic sounds entitled eye-blink, based on texts by the English poet Harry Gilonis.”
You can also watch Richard Barrett in a virtual interview with Alinéa about “eye-blink (1)” :
Listen to "eye-blink (1)":