Ronan Guilfoyle: Blog

Spent today in Dave McCune's lovely studio in the north Dublin countryside today. The occasion was the recording of some tracks with Trilogue, my new chamber improvising group - a trio with Sarah Buechi (voice) and Izumi Kimura (piano). This is a relatively new group but one that's already real fun to play with and one with great potential.

Over the past 10 years I've written a lot of chamber music for various classical ensembles, sometimes with an improviser, sometimes not. And for a long time I've also thought it would be a nice idea to have a group that combined a large composed element with the ability to improvise and be spontaneous - with Trilogue I think I've found such a group. About 5 years ago I came across Izumi, a really great contemporary classical pianist who plays my music very well, and who really understands the rhythmic language of contemporary improvised music very well. She has a great technique and a great time feel, and a real appreciation of the aesthetics of improvised music. Sarah comes from a jazz background, but has another string to her bow in that she studied South Indian classical music extensively in India and brings that experience ot her improvising. She too has a fantastic technique and an extraordinary ability to learn and memorise even the most technically difficult of material. She's really fearless and will take on things that would send most other singers running for cover!

So the stage was set for a tryout of this new group and in January we went off to the beautiful Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan to rehearse the music and see how we could develop things. Having the luxury of just spending three days at music without interruption was an incredible help and we really got things moving and began to develop an individual sound. Of course these things take time and no doubt we're only at the beginning of what's possible with this group, but already I'm sensing that the group has a real personality combining as it does true spontaneity with an ability to dig into complex written material.

We have a bunch of written pieces and also some completely spontaneous pieces which we set up by playing a little tag stolen from Serge Prokofiev's 7th Piano Sonata - anyone in the group can start this at any time and hearing the tempo and vibe chosen, the others will join in immediately, the piece taking on whatever shape it wants to, and going in whatever direction it wants to.

Today we recorded four written pieces and seven improvised pieces based on the little Prokofiev theme. Once we got the sound going in the headphones it all went very quickly and easily. It really helps that Dave is such a good engineer and musician - he's fast and able to hear little technical problems in the music, and this can be really helpful when, like us, you're trying to put together challenging material in a short space of time.

It's always difficult to be objective just after you've recorded, I usually wait a few days before listening again, and I'll probably do that with this recording and then decide whether it will be the basis for a CD, or whether it's a kind of document of a work in progress. But I feel very positive about this music and so I'm putting up a rough mix of 'Helter-Skelter', a piece that typifies the group's approach - free wheeling improvisation blended with strictly written passages demanding real virtuosity. Hope you enjoy it!

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(Trilogue will be appearing at JJ Smyth's in Dublin on Sunday May 9th next