2025-05-15 09:58:10
Chamber Concert by The Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble
2025.5.19(Monday) 15:00
Chamber Concert by The Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble
2025.5.19(Monday) 15:00
CCOM Recital Hall
Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble
Daniel Browell, Piano
Ciaran McCabe, Violin
David McCann,Cello
Aisling Agnew, Flutes
William Curran, Clarinets
Program
Greg Caffrey These are the Clouds about the Fallen Sun (2013) 8’
ZHANG Shuhao Triadic Veilings (2024) for alto flute and piano 8’
NI Chenkang Dance of Exploding Dragon (2022) for Violin，Cello and Piano 7’
Anita Mawhinney Macalla Mhacha (2023) 10’
——————Intermission——————
Ryan Molloy Gortnagarn ll (2016) 11’
WANG A-Mao THE COLLOQUY OF STRINGS AND AIR(2017) for Flute and Piano 9'4''
SONG Yue Iron Horses (2020) 8’
Geoff Hannan Breaking News (2024) 11’
Introduction
Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble
Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble is Northern Ireland’s cutting-edge contemporary music group, featuring a world- class group of musicians who specialize in the performance of modern music.
Showcase performers at Classical:NEXT in Berlin 2024, Hard Rain was founded by composer Greg Caffrey in 2013. They have given multiple premieres and developed a dedicated following for new music in their home city of Belfast and beyond.
Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble feature on several successful recordings, including Up By the Roots (Delphian), The Tyndall Effect (MéNer) and their debut double CD A Terrible Beauty (Diatribe). A former Guardian pick of the week with works by eleven Irish composers, it is“ ...an extraordinary demonstration of the sheer range of colour it is possible to extract from this type of ensemble... in terms of performance standard and range of music commissioned, this CD set makes one look forward with anticipation to Hard Rain’s second decade promoting Irish composition.”
In addition to their well-established Concert Season at home, and having performed at festivals around UK & Ireland such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, New Music Dublin, Sonorities Festival, Walled City Music and Belfast International Festival, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble have also performed further afield at Musicahora Festival in Chile, Säälchen, Holzmarkt in Berlin, Nieuwe Noten in Amsterdam, The University of St Andrews, Sheffield University and Birmingham Conservatoire. 2025 will see the ensemble perform extensively on international stages across Europe, South America and Asia.
As Ensemble-in-Residence at Queen's University Belfast, Hard Rain are dedicated Industry Professionals and they work closely with students throughout various stages of their development, stimulating and encouraging the next wave of composition, performance and sound engineering professionals. Their various outreach and education initiatives also include Ulster University, NI Film Scoring School with Dumbworld, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Belfast Conducting Workshop, Drake Music, their bespoke Talent Development programme with PRSf, and long-standing association with Ulster Youth Orchestra.
Generously supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Hard Rain have been a catalyst for creativity in Northern Ireland, commissioning (around 80 pieces to date) and performing many brand-new works as part of their innovative programming. Hard Rain concerts gives audiences unique access to composers’ voices, and serve as a showcase for the talent of highly specialist performers, inspiring and developing the next generation of musicians through innovation, ideas and enthusiasm. Cross-art collaborations are also vital and Hard Rain are proud to partner with dancers (Maiden Voyage Dance), visual artists (Belfast School of Art), videographers (Steve Lee), writers and poets.
Composers
Greg Caffrey
The Irish composer Greg Caffrey read music at Queen’s University Belfast, studying composition under Prof. Piers Hellawell and complexist composer James Clarke, completing a PhD in 2002. His music is commissioned and performed internationally.
Numerous awards for composition include: First Prize at the Concorso Counterpoint, Italy in May 2012, finalist in the ISME- IVME 2nd International Composition Contest in Brussels in 2008; Taukay Edizioni Musicali International Composition Prize in 2012, and the Musica Domani International Composition Prize (USA). His orchestral work A Terrible Beauty was designated a “recommended work” in the 4th Uuno Klami International Composition Prize by a jury which included Magnus Lindberg and Erkki-Sven Tüür. Environments II, for guitar and orchestra was a prizewinning work in the chamber orchestra music category of the International Conductors Union Composition Contest, Ukraine in 2021. He was selected to represent Ireland at ISCM World Music Days in China 2021.
Recently he was awarded the Major Individual Award. This award is the highest value honour bestowed by Arts Council Northern Ireland on artists. Greg was additionally the recipient of the prestigious PRSf 2022 Composers Award and is a Help Musicians supported artist.
Greg is founder of Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble and served as their Artistic Director for 10 years before stepping down in 2023.
ZHANG Shuhao
ZHANG Shuhao is currently a master's student studying at the Central Conservatory of Music, under the guidance of Professor Xiaogang Ye.
His works have been performed at multiple events and music festivals. The violin work "Anabiosis" was selected as a commissioned word for the violin group of the second Harbin International Music Competition, and received unanimous recognition from the contestants and judges during the competition. The orchestral work "Overture to Youth" stood out among 355 registered works at the "Praise for the New Era" - Original Symphony Exhibition held by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles in 2022. It was performed by renowned conductor Yu Feng and the Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra at the National Grand Theatre.
NI Chenkang
NI Chenkang, as a Chinese young composer who studied most of time in Germany, resident composer of China- ASEAN music festival and Contemporary Ensemble, post-doctorate at Shanghai Conservatory of Music，external teaching assistant of composition at Shanghai Conservatory of Music and New York University Shanghai.
He used to be instructed by Prof. DENG Erbo, Prof. QIANG Weihao, Prof. Wolfgang-Andreas Schultz, Prof. CHEN Xiaoyong, Prof. Peter Michael Hamel, Prof. Markus Hechtle, Prof. Wolfgang Rihm and Prof. ZHOU Xianglin.
He has won many first prizes and gold medals in international composition competitions. He has been commissioned to compose and perform works by numerous orchestras and performing arts organizations both in China and abroad. His piece “Silence Night Fantasy” was selected as a repertoire for the “Special Prize for Composers from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music” at the Orléans International Piano Competition in France. Some of his musical works and academic articles have been published in Party and Government Forum, Music Composition, and Jiefang Daily. In 2023, one of his works received support from the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation’s incubation project.
Anita Mawhinney
Anita Mawhinney is an award-winning composer, lecturer, tutor and performer based in County Down. She was educated at the universities of Oxford and York. In 2021 she became the winner of the 5th Peter Rosser Foundation/Hard Rain Composition Award with her piece, Dark Measures. She also won First Prize in the Charles Wood Composers’ Competition for her unaccompanied antiphonal choral work, Hail, Gladdening Light, in 2023. She has worked with many choirs, ensembles and soloists and her compositions have been supported by ACNI and PRSf amongst others. Her most recent pieces include Pierrette for Hard Rain ensemble; Eclipse for saxophone quartet and Whilom: A Folksong in Four Seasons for piano and women’s voices. She is currently working on pieces for solo piano and solo cello and a large-scale dramatic project.
Ryan Molloy
Ryan Molloy’s compositional work engages with the boundary of contemporary music and traditional Irish music, drawing on his extensive experience as a traditional Irish fiddler and pianist. Ryan has written over fifty works and his music has been performed to audiences on four continents for over twenty years, as well as featuring regularly in national and international TV and radio broadcasts (including BBC, RTÉ and UTV). Ryan was awarded the prestigious TG4 Gradam Ceoil Composer of the Year in 2024. He has been commissioned by both RTÉ and the BBC, as well as a range of renowned performers such as the Danish String Quartet, Ulster Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, and Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. He has represented Ireland at the prestigious ISCM World New Music Days festivals in Hong Kong (2015), Vancouver (2017) and Auckland/Christchurch (2022).
Ryan has recorded on over thirty albums as a pianist, composer and arranger and in both 2020 and 2021 he was nominated in the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards Best Folk Instrumentalist category in recognition of this work. Described as a ‘milestone’ in traditional piano performance, Ryan’s critically acclaimed first solo recording ‘pianophony’ was released in 2019 and his recent works, including casúir ’s cnaipí and PIANOBOXING, showcase his innovative approach to traditional piano performance. 2025 sees the recording of his Violin Concerto by Darragh Morgan and the Ulster Orchestra, as well as a new work for violin and orchestra for German violinist Katharina Uhde. Ryan is also Associate Professor of Composition at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Ryan is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre.
Wang A-Mao
Dr. Wang A Mao is a composer of contemporary music. She has received recognitions through performances in both Asia and America. Her orchestral works have been read by the American Composers Orchestra in its 23th Underwood New Music Readings, and by the Kansas City Symphony in 2012 and 2015 respectively. In 2013, She was awarded the Missouri Music Teachers Association Composition Commission. In 2011, Dr. Wang was selected for the Young Composer Project, held by the Beijing Modern Music Festival. Her chamber works were premiered by Alarm Will Sound, Third Angle Ensemble, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Music from China. Wang has also held fellowship residencies at the Aspen Music Festival, the Intimacy of Creativity, the Banff Centre, and Mizzou International Music Festival.
Dr.Wang received her DMA and a Master of Music in Composition in 2012 from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she studied with Chen Yi, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, and Paul Rudy. Prior to that, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Composition from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music under the guidance of Tang Jianping.
SONG Yue
SONG Yue is a Chinese composer and pianist based in Dublin, Ireland, represented by the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland. She holds a BA in Composition from the China Conservatory of Music and a Master’s degree from the Central Conservatory of Music, with further studies leading to a PhD in Composition at TU Dublin Conservatoire, completed in 2023.
Her compositions span opera, orchestra, Chinese orchestra, chamber music, solo pieces, and electronic music. They have been performed internationally by groups such as Crash Ensemble, ConTempo Quartet, Concorde Ensemble, Unconventional Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland at festivals across Austria, Canada, China, Estonia, France, Italy, Ireland, and the U.S. She focuses on collaborative composition, integrating performers’ unique characteristics into her music. Yue’s works have been featured at major international festivals and are noted for their innovative blend of music and narrative, particularly in opera, where she often writes her own librettos.
Yue’s awards include prizes at the World Championship Composition Competition, European Composer Competiton, and Women Composers Competition. Her works are published by Crash Records, and her recent album of bass clarinet and electronic music was released by North Bull Records.
Geoff Hannan
Geoff Hannan was born in London, UK. He studied composition privately with Michael Finnissy before reading Music at Manchester University where he graduated in 1993. In 1998 he was awarded the Gaudeamusprijs for Rigmarole, his first mature work, and in 2007 the 5th International Marenco Prize for Lifeblood. His music has been performed at many festivals in the UK and elsewhere, including Composer Lab in Dublin, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the London Sinfonietta’s State of the Nation and SOUNDINGS at the Austrian Cultural Forum, and been heard on British, Irish, French and Dutch radio, notably ‘The New Music Show’, ‘Hear and Now’, ‘Music Matters’, ‘Sounding the Century’ and ‘In Tune’. He has been performed by, among others, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Skipton Camerata, the London Sinfonietta, IXION, the Ives Ensemble (Netherlands), CONTINUUM (Canada), EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble and tenor Andrew Staples. In 2019 he was awarded an Ivor Novello Composer Award for Pocket Universe.
Geoff has also written the music for the multi-award-winning animation Kahanikar (dir. Nandita Jain) and the BAFTA-nominated short film Take Your Partners (dir. Siri Rodnes). He has worked as orchestrator on the feature films Permanência (dir. Leonardo Lacca), and Miss Christina (dir. Alexandru Maqei) which won the Gopo Award for Best Original Music Score. He also works as an arranger, having transcribed Elgar’s Enigma Variations for piano quartet and John Williams’ Prologue and Main Title Music from Superman the Movie for piano duet.
Geoff lives in Dublin, Ireland, and his music is represented by Donemus.
Program Notes
Greg Caffrey
These are the Clouds about the Fallen Sun (2013)
“This piece of music, written as an elegy, reflects a very personal interpretation of the Yeats poem. So, rather than the accepted reading of the poem as a requiem for the demise of traditional values in the face of modernity, I have expressed here a more orthodox sense of loss. Technically the piece reflects my preoccupation, at the time of writng, with the creation of more spacious and ‘beautiful’ sound-worlds. The piece has developed since as the first movement of the larger three movement piece, A Terrible Beauty. This larger work exists in a chamber music version and as an arrangement for orchestra. It was, however, always my intention that 'These are the clouds about the fallen sun' could be performed as an independent piece outside the larger work. The piece was written in memory of my late brother Marc Caffrey.”
ZHANG Shuhao
Triadic Veilings for alto flute and piano
This modern duo for alto flute and piano constructs a tripartite sonic ecosystem along the floral life cycle—"Budding," "Crepuscular Bloom," and "Ephemeral Dissolution"—through three interwoven movements. The flute articulates sap's clandestine pulse through breath-tones and microtonal fluctuations, while the piano conjures moonlit soil textures via harmonic series tremors and prepared-string resonances. In the second movement, circular breathing sculpts a holographic field of petal unfurling, disrupted by the piano's displaced accents mimicking dewdrops shattering temporal linearity. The finale binds the flute's palindromic textures with pedal-sustained piano clusters under a twelve-tone serialism bass framework, their symbiotic decay tracing vanishing trajectories through pitch-space collapse—a philosophical deconstruction of "blossom as obliteration" crystallized in spectral harmonics.
NI Chenkang
Dance of Exploding Dragon for Violin，Cello and Piano
The Exploding Dragon Festival is a comprehensive ethnic folk festival in Binyang County where Han and Zhuang cultures blend and co-exist. The festival was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008, and was rated as "the best intangible cultural heritage festival in China". The number of tourists participating in the Binyang Exploding Dragon Festival once exceeded 500,000.
The title of the work is "Dance of the exploding Dragon", which focuses on describing and depicting the grand event of the exploding Dragon Dance in the festival. In the way of music, the scene of the exploding dragons moving from far to near, the sound of the firecrackers shaking the sky, and the dragons writhing and dancing in the green smoke is rendered. As the saying goes, " the dragon dance will not stop until all the firecrackers are used!" In the final stage of the firecracker and dragon dance, people will hold a traditional dragon sending ceremony, "Worshiping and sending off the dragon". The work aims to render the public to enjoy the carnival brought by traditional culture and experience the strong atmosphere of carnival.
Anita Mawhinney
Macalla Mhacha (2023)
Macalla Mhacha forms the second part of a two-part project, with funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, based on Macha from Celtic mythology. The first composition, Quicksilver, was for chamber choir and was premiered by Cappella Caeciliana in June 2023. The piece told the dramatic story of Macha, ending with her famous curse against all of the men of Ulster; that when they needed their strength the most, they would feel the pain of a woman in childbirth.
Macalla Mhacha for Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble is a reflection of some of the themes of Quicksilver which return as echoes or ‘mists’. The central part of the composition is a chorale based on a passage from the choral piece concerning the secret that Macha made her husband, Crunniuc, swear to keep: “Tell no one of me, for no one can see that Macha can run like the wind.”
Ryan Molloy
Gortnagarn ll (2016)
Gortnagarn II is a personal reflection on our connection with place, and landscape; a meditation on belonging to a very specific patch of earth. This piece is dedicated to and commissioned generously by the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble with funds from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
WANG A-Mao
THE COLLOQUY OF STRINGS AND AIR
“Sizhu” (in Chinese, literally means “silk and bamboo”) generally refers to music performed using Chinese chordophones (silk strings) and aerophones (bamboo tubes). Among those, Guqin and Xiao (vertical bamboo flute) are the two most prominent instruments to represent the spirit of Chinese music and culture. Poets and scholars frequently used both for study and entertainment, as an important part of their intellectual and social life, and their musical aesthetics have been appreciated and handed down from one generation to another until today. This work is commissioned by The Juilliard School for the 2018 Focus! Festival
SONG Yue
Iron Horses (2020)
This piece tells the story of a young national hero in Chinese history—Huo Qubing (140 BC – 117 BC), a brilliant military general of the Western Han dynasty during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. At just 18 years old, Huo Qubing led 800 light cavalrymen deep into the Gobi Desert—modern-day Mongolia—striking a decisive blow against the Xiongnu nomadic confederation. His daring raid not only defeated the Chanyu's grandfather but also eliminated over 2,000 enemy troops and captured numerous Xiongnu nobles.
In 121 BC, Emperor Wu sent Huo Qubing on two major campaigns in the Hexi Corridor. His victories crushed the Xiongnu princes of Hunxie and Xiutu, securing this crucial region for the Han Dynasty. This triumph paved the way for the Northern Silk Road, linking China directly to Central Asia. It also introduced superior horse breeds, including the famed Ferghana horse—ancestors of today’s Akhal-Teke—further strengthening the Han cavalry. Huo Qubing remains one of the most celebrated military commanders in Chinese history. The historian Ban Gu of the Eastern Han Dynasty honored his achievements in the Book of Han:
" The Champion of Piaoji, fast and brave. Six long-distance assaults, like lightning and thunder. Watering horses at Lake Baikal, conducting rituals at Khentii Mountains. Conquering the lands west of the Great Water, establishing commanderies along Qilian Mountains." Yet, his brilliance was fleeting—Huo Qubing died at the young age of 23. His legend lives on, encapsulated in an old saying: “Famous generals are like beauties; they are not allowed to grow old.” Musically, this piece captures the essence of his story through sweeping glissandi, evoking the sounds of traditional instruments. The composition is deeply inspired by the folk songs of nomadic peoples, particularly their long tunes, reflecting the vast landscapes and untamed spirit of the steppe.
Geoff Hannan
Breaking News (2024)
Breaking News is a musical satire on the television news cycle. Neil Postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) remarked that television cannot be serious because its form precludes its content, much in the same way that you cannot philosophise with smoke signals. He argued that television is at its most dangerous when it attempts to be serious. The piece, whose title is a pun, is a companion to Centrifugal Bumblepuppy, a piece I wrote in 1999 for similar forces.