The Benjamin Dwyer Ensemble - “SacrumProfanum”

“SacrumProfanum”

Composer 

Benjamin Dwyer 

(amplified ensemble and tape)

Featuring

Garth Knox (viola)

Emma Coulthard (flutes)

Siobhán Armstrong (medieval Irish harp, voice - Sean Nós)

Benjamin Dwyer (bowed guitar)

Jona Xhepa (text)

Donnacha Dwyer (uillean pipes, recorded)

SacrumProfanum is a multimedia work for amplified musicians and tape that explores Sheela-na-gigs, the enigmatic stone carvings found in Ireland and parts of Britain.  

Irish composer Benjamin Dwyer has spent the last ten years travelling across Ireland studying, photographing and sketching these mysterious figures. Responding artistically through the Sheela ‘as witness’, Dwyer has created a unique work exploring themes such as feminism, colonialism, identity, religion, rite, landscape, sexuality and the disintegration of Gaelic culture.  

In a score that combines contemporary music, interfacing with traditional Irish forms, instruments and sean-nós singing, SacrumProfanum offers perceptive critiques of contemporary exploitations of Irish culture. It investigates these themes through raw, visceral, often abject but ultimately poignant and deeply affecting music.  

SacrumProfanum features internationally renowned performers: violist Garth Knox, flautist Emma Coulthard, medieval Irish harpist and sean-nós singer Siobhán Armstrong, Benjamin Dwyer on bowed guitar, and uillean piper Donnacha (featured on the tape part). Poet Jona Xhepa has written a specially commissioned poem entitled Sheela-na-gig, and the work incorporates a number of Gaelic texts sourced by Siobhán Armstrong.

What are Sheela-na-gigs?

Sheela-na-gigs are stone carvings of naked female figures that prominently depict oversized vulvas. In contrast, the rest of the body is often emaciated or even skeletal, with sagging, diminutive or missing breasts. Their bodies thus present images of both death and life regeneration. The figures are often balding with wrinkled foreheads and chevron-shaped striations on their faces. Sheelas often have excessively large heads, eyes and ears.

Sheela-na-gigs are found on medieval churches, castles and town walls, and near ancient wells, with over one hundred figures found in Ireland and around forty uncovered in Britain. Their origins are unclear because many were discovered ex situ, having been hidden in fields or dumped into rivers. Most anthropologists agree that they date from between the 11th and 17th centuries; though it is perfectly plausible to suggest an earlier period, as many of the medieval churches where Sheelas are located were built to replace former pagan sites of worship.

Numerous theories pertaining to their potential meaning and function have been put forward. Among these is that they are icons of fertility that facilitate conception and childbirth. Another is that they are warnings against lust or the transgression of religious taboos. Opposing these propositions is the notion that they are pagan Goddesses of female empowerment and untamed sexuality. They are also seen as symbols of the power of nature to give and take life, as defensive talismans against the evil eye, or as emblems and facilitators of sovereignty over land or communities. The liminal location of many Sheelas (above church doorways or windows) suggests that they facilitated rights of passage from one state to another—from life to death, a spiritual transformation, or an elevation to higher social or political status. 

For more on Benjamin Dwyer’s work on Sheela-na-gigs, visit this website.

For more on Benjamin Dwyer’s work on Sheela-na-gigs see: http://enclavereview.org/sheela-na-gigs-and-an-aesthetics-of-damage

BIOGRAPHYS: THE COMPOSER & MUSICIANS

Benjamin Dwyer (Composer, Musician): Guitarist and composer Benjamin Dwyer has given concerts worldwide and has appeared as soloist with all the Irish orchestras, the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Germany), the Santos Symphony Orchestra (Brazil), Ensemble VOX21, the Vogler String Quartet (Germany) and the Callino String Quartet (UK). As well as a classical guitarist, Dwyer is internationally recognized as a leading exponent of contemporary music and free improvisation. He is the guitarist in Barry Guy’s Blue Shroud Band, which headed the bill at the Krakow Autumn Jazz Festival in 2014 and 2016. Dwyer's compositions are regularly performed internationally and he has been the featured composer at the Musica Nova Festival (São Paulo), the Bienal de Riberão Preto (Brazil), the Irish National Concert Hall's Composers' Choice, the RTÉ National 

Symphony Orchestra's Horizons series and MUSIC21 (Dublin) and London’s King’s Place Chamber Music series. Recent CD recordings include Twelve Études (Gamelan Records, 2008), Irish Guitar Works (El Cortijo, 2012), Scenes from Crow (Diatribe Records, 2014), Umbilical (Diatribe Records, 2017), The Alchemia Sessions Live from the Autumn Jazz Krakow 2014 (Notwo Records, 2016), Barry Guy, The Blue Shroud (Intakt Records, 2016) and KnowingUnknowing (Farpoint Records, 2018). Dwyer is an elected member of Aosdána (the Irish Academy of creative artists) and an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London (ARAM). He earned a PhD in Composition from Queen's University (Belfast), and is currently Professor of Music at Middlesex University, London. (see: www.benjamindwyer.com) 

Garth Knox is one of the most renowned viola players of recent times. In 1983 he was invited by Pierre Boulez to become a member of the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris; and in 1990 he joined the famous Arditti String Quartet, which led him to play in all the major concert halls of the world, working closely with most of today's leading composers including Ligeti, Kurtág, Berio, Xenakis, Lachenmann, Cage, Feldman and Stockhausen (performing the famous Helicopter Quartet). Garth now lives in Paris, where he enjoys a full time solo career, giving recitals, concertos and chamber music concerts all over Europe, the USA and Japan. His first solo CD, Works for Viola, won the coveted Deutsche Schallplaten Preis in Germany, his second CD, Spectral Viola, has been highly acclaimed, his viola d’amore CD for ECM, 

D’Amore, was chosen by the New York Times as one of the Records of the Year, and his latest CD, Saltarello, was named record of the month by Gramophone (see: http://www.garthknox.org) 

Siobhán Armstrong is one of Europe’s foremost historical harpists who specializes in music from the Middles Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque era. She has recorded music from the 15th- to 18th-centuries with many of Europe’s most prestigious historical musicians; and she also collaborates with some of Ireland’s best traditional Irish music performers. Siobhán is founder of the Historical Harp Society of Ireland, which is spearheading the revival of historical harp performance. Her CD recording, Cleárseach na hÉireann, has received worldwide acclaim. (see: www.siobhanarmstrong.com) 

Musician Emma Coulthard is Cardiff born and Dublin bred. Having moved to Dublin at a very young age, Emma began to study flute and recorder at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with Doris Keogh, specialising in Early and Contemporary music. She continued her studies at Trinity College Dublin where she gained a Masters Degree in Musicology. Emma has performed and recorded works by Irish Composers John Buckley, Martin O’Leary, Michael Holohan, Fergus Johnston and was the soloist for Paul Hayes’ Prix Italia piece Mass production . She has recorded for BBC and RTE television and radio. Now back in Cardiff, she has had pieces written for her by the late Welsh Composers Peter Reynolds and Mervyn Burtch, 

performing at the National Museum . Girl with Flute is a project rekindling her relationship with the flute and exploring the metamorphosis from voice to flute to electronics. Emma has had masterclasses with the New York Flute pioneer Robert Dick, who has been a huge influence, with extended techniques and the Glissando Headjoint. Emma is working with several composers on new projects and gave the premier of Fergus Johnston’s Planxty at the WMC in 2018. Emma is also Head of the Music Service for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, and has been published by Music Sales, Chester and Trinity publications. She is the author of the popular 'Best Duet Book Ever!' series and writes regularly on Music Education. www.emmacoulthard.com 

Donnacha Dwyer is one of Ireland’s foremost uilleann pipers. He began playing the pipes in Na Píobairí Uilleann in the late 1980s where he was thought by Martin Nolan and John Murphy. By the mid ’90s he began to be influenced by the recordings of Seamus Ennis, Willie Clancy, Leo Rowsome and Liam O’Flynn. Around the same time he began performing on the pipes and took a keen interest in reed and pipe making, studying initially with pipe maker Des Seery. His album, Bourke and Dwyer (with fiddler Malachy Bourke) has been hugely successful leading to appearances in trad festivals throughput the country and beyond.