World premiere to feature in free concert

The world premiere of E-Bow, a work for string quartet and electric guitar by  composer Dave Flynn, will take place this Sunday, May 22, at 3pm at the O’Donoghue Theatre, NUIG. Admission is free and all are welcome.

E-Bow will be performed by Galway’s quartet in residence, ConTempo, and Dave Flynn himself. A work in three movements, it plays with the tradition of the guitar quintet, which dates back to the late 18th century, but brings it in new directions by using an electric guitar with the addition of an e-bow.

This is a hand-held electronic bow invented by Greg Heet in 1969 and patented in 1978, after which it became an essential tool for rock guitarists. Performers including Blondie, U2, Radiohead, Big Country, Genesis, Pink Floyd and R.E.M. have used them, but e-bows are less common in classical music because they don’t work on nylon-string classical guitars.

The work was co-commissioned by long-term commissioning partners Galway Music Residency (GMR) and Galway City Council and is being presented  as part of Arts in Action, by  GMR, in association with Dublin’s Contemporary Music Centre.

Sunday’s show will also include a performance of Philip Glass’ Mishima, arranged for string quartet and electric guitar, with special permission from the composer. Philip Glass composed this piece for the film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, about Japanese author Yukio Mishima who died in November 1970 after performing Seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment).

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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