Live music review: Stargaze

Kilkenny Arts Festival

This midweek concert at St Canice’s Cathedral ticked a lot of boxes. Modern, edgy with a high-end pop meets classical vibe. Stargaze is a contemporary classical music collective based in Berlin with a penchant for collaborative ventures. There were three distinct strands to the evening and in keeping with the experimental approach, some of it worked for some of the people, some of the time.

The most accessible segment was the opening song cycle, Death Speaks, by American composer, David Lang. Death personified as in Schubert’s Lieder was the starting point for lyrics delivered by the spectral timbre of Shara Worden’s soprano voice floating over a barely-there rock ensemble of electric guitar, piano and violin in a style reminiscent of Bjork.

The second strand mixed The Dodos, a Californian rock duo, with the expanded forces of Stargaze in a performance of a song set culled from their last three albums. Andre de Ridder’s sophisticated pop arrangements were full of rhythmic interest and colour drawn from a diverse palette of timbres in an 18 piece ensemble. Meric Long on vocals and guitar, acoustic and electric, gave a fully committed performance over a demanding hour-long set. It was regrettable his vocal line was subsumed into the general mélange of amplified instruments, the lyrics for the most part indecipherable. The rock element was subdued until near the end, when there was a bit of mild head-banging and unleashed electric guitar. In the gaps for returning, the audience responded tentatively, unsure of the conventions of applauding a ‘between the lines’ ensemble.

To finish, there was a jam version of Terry Riley’s, In C, a seminal work setting the template on how to make a little go a long way with festival artists joining Stargaze for the minimalist marathon.

A less demanding experiment at the festival worked a treat. ‘Secret Gardens’ saw festival artists, Martin Hayes and Heath Quartet perform in Kilkenny’s historic urban gardens.