BRIAN
LEDWIDGE
FLYNN
COMPOSER • PRODUCER • TUTOR
WORKS & COMMISSIONS
// ENSEMBLE _ SOLO
"EQUUS"
for ÉIRE GUITAR DUO
2025
Composition for ÉIRE GUITAR DUO (Guitar 1 - Oscar Montague, Guitar 2 - Santiago Kodela) premiered at the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2024.
Duration : 5'35"
"UHRMACHER"
for 12 musicians & amplified pocket watch
2023
Incommensurable composition for twelve musicians of open instrumentation [subject to pitch ranges] & amplified pocket watch.
Each musician is prescribed one note [in some cases preceded by a grace note] that is repeated at a unique and consistant interval of time. Thereby the vertical relationship between the notes ‘turn’, as it were, like the hands of a clock. The range of notes presented are, in this incarnation of the work, based around a lydian modal tonality [raised 4th].
The musicians are instructed to play on only 50% of the repetitions, distributed throughout the piece as they see fit. Furthermore, performers are given a selection of octaves to which they can shift after a range of repetitions outlined in the performance instructions.
The leading bass instrument [player IX] is given a selection of pitches from which to choose on each repetition.
The result is a piece which is self-similar but never identical and is harmonically constructed so as to alternate between dominant and tonic states.
Duration : Open [60 Minutes Suggested]
//
for synchronised ensemble
"TIME PIECE"
2021
Synchronised piece for open instrumentation composed for the Ensemble for New Chamber Music at the Institute for Music and Musicology at TU Dortmund / Ensemble für Neue Kammermusik am Institut für Musik und Musikwissenschaft der TU Dortmund.
Changes and shifts in 'TIME PIECE' are informed by points on a time-line. The essemble interprets how their prescribed pitchs occur at the point upon the shared timeline.
Due to the synchronised nature of the piece, it is possible to layer multiple performances and interpretations together. The version below consists of four such layers from performances by the Ensemble für Neue Kammermusik am Institut für Musik und Musikwissenschaft der TU Dortmund with differing instrumentation for different concerts.
Duration : 6'10"
!['TIME PIECE' • Ensembles für Neue Kammermusik [With SCORE]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JpjARbKF26M/maxresdefault.jpg)
//
Μετάνοια
for Woodwind & Tape
2020
Cross Cultural Collaboration during the COVID Pandemic with composer and wind player Леон Суходольский [Leon Sukhodolsky] • Tenor Sax, Bass Clarinet and Trumpet.
A musical mode is gradually expressed in a cloud chord overwhich textural and melodic elements intertwine.
Duration : 7'05"
//
"NIGHT WALKER"
for the Engine Room Orchestra
2010
THE ENGINE ROOM ORCHESTRA was an ensemble formed in Dublin in 2009 to play original compositions live alongside public screenings of silent films.
The group performed a number of concerts between 2009 & 2010.
"NIGHTWALKER" is a collection of pieces from our repertoire recorded live at various venues and festivals throughout Ireland [2010 – 2011]
//
"REORIENTATION"
for the Chai Found Music Workshop
2009
Commission for the Chai Found Music Workshop, Taipei based around the use of the pentatonic scale as an expression of the five elements of Wu Xing [wood (mu), fire (huo), earth (tu), metal (jin), and water (shui)] and their connection to the cycle of overcoming and destruction.
Melodic patterns are assigned to each element which are, in turn, interpolated by way of pitch and rhythm. The interaction and tessellations of the musical material aim to reveal deeper meaning in this ancient philosophy.
DURATION : 3’ 45”
!["REORIENTATION" for the Chai Found Music Workshop [2009]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vk0xdpEWV5Q/maxresdefault.jpg)
//
"QUINTET"
for Ensemble ICC
2008
Commission for the Ensemble ICC
Meditative composition inspired by the architecture of Philip Johnson's 'Glass House, 1949.
This incrementally developing piece is presented as transparent surface through which one has a view of a vast landscape.
The landscape is framed by pitch intervals and the spaces between are explored as if they were features in the line of sight. Through the shifting of timbres and tonal center, new perspectives and features are revealed.
Duration : 12'38"
!["QUINTET" for Ensemble ICC [2008]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V9lzLRS9-bg/maxresdefault.jpg)
//
"SWERVE"
for Solo Cello
2008
Commission for the Young Composers' Collective [later renamed to the Irish Composers Collective]
Composition for solo Cello exploiting the vertical repetitions of notes occuring on the adjacent strings of the instrument. Phrases are repeated in different positions on the Cello in canon with one other.
Duration : 2' 33"
!["SWERVE" • for Solo Cello [2008] • Performed by Kate Ellis](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8seYaIjUhsc/maxresdefault.jpg)
//
"CAMEO"
Miniature for the Dublin Guitar Quartet
2008
Commission for the inaugural performance of the Young Composers’ Collective with the Dublin Guitar Quartet.
Participating composers were tasked with writing a one minute piece.
For this piece I developed an innovative method of exciting the strings on both the right and left side of the fretted hand, lending the piece a subtle microtonality.
'CAMEO' was later released on the Dublin Guitar Quartet's 'Contemporary Irish' album, 2018, Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland music recording scheme, managed by Music Network
Video below is of my own interpretation with accelerated Hand-written score / see resources tab for DGQ release.
DURATION : 1' 00"
![CAMEO - 1/4 Tone Guitar Quartet [2020]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rq_7q_R-Ky0/maxresdefault.jpg)
//
"KEKIOKOLANE"
for Modern Amplified
Rock/Chamber Ensemble
2019
Some things,
You Can't Outrun.
Composition for Modern Amplified Ensemble
Performed, Sequenced and Produced by BLF
The title 'KEKIOKOLANE' refers to the interior melody line around which all other sections are devised by way of variation, reharmonisation and disintegration.
This interior melodic theme represents the thread that runs through us all, that which makes us not only human & individually unique but also that which makes us the single greatest danger to ourselves and each other.
Video by Paisley Grey
//
"SHADOW PLAY"
for Microtonal quintet and sinewaves
2023
DELICATE FOREBODING
Brooding and textural composition for detuned chamber ensemble and sinewaves.
At various points indicated in the synchronised score, indicated performers retune their instruments up or down a 1/4 tone, adding to the sense of the unfamiliar. Like instruments in fog. In this regard, "SHADOW PLAY" is a companion piece to my earlier composition 'QUINTET' [2008], which is set not in shadow, but light.
Microtonal melodic material is present in the 'shadows' but moves almost imperceivable towards an eventual sonorous crescendo wherein all the instruments converge upon the same retuned tonality alteration and the shadows lift, or do they go darker still?
DURATION - 7' 19"
!['SHADOW PLAY' [SCORE VIDEO] • for Microtonal quintet and sinewaves](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/byfWAkzpeek/maxresdefault.jpg)
//
"FLIGHT OF THE NIGHTINGALE"
for Flute & Chamber Orchestra
Planned for 2025, Engine Room Orchestra
Composition for Solo Flute and Chamber Orchestra.
Composed 2023 for The Engine Room Chamber Ensemble.
Duration : 3' 50"
