Media

MEDIA

HEARTSHIP

Various venues, Cork city
Tuesday 10th  – Sunday 15th September 2019 

Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival is honoured to announce Heartship, a new project by artist Dorothy Cross, featuring the music and presence of singer Lisa Hannigan. Heartship will celebrate the Irish Naval services contribution to the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean where they helped save so many lives, addressing the rescuing and disappearance of so many hearts within that ocean. Heartship involves a ship that will harbour the relic of a human heart, while a lone woman is visible wandering around the deck . 

On Saturday 14th September, the L.É. James Joyce will sail up the river Lee in Cork from Haulbowline Island with a lone occupant visible on deck. Lisa Hannigan will be on board – with recorded sound of her beautiful, ethereal, voice emanating from the ship. The recordings will be of Lisa singing songs about the heart, together with the extraordinary sound of the glass armonica, played by Alasdair Malloy. The music of a glass armonica is formed by fingers running water over glass. These beautiful sounds will emanate from the ship and float out over the city. It will dock where an audience will be able to hear a live performance by Lisa from the ship – they will remain on the riverside. Admission is free. Starts at 4:30pm.

Renowned filmmaker Alan Gilsenan, will work with Dorothy Cross to create a film that embodies Heartship. When complete, the film will be screened at The Crawford Gallery. Opening at Crawford Art Gallery / Thurs 12th Sept at 5:30pm, open Fri & Saturday 10.00am–5.00pm and Sunday 11am – 4pm.
The presence of a human heart is integral to the project.  For Heartship, the Navy vessel will contain the relic of a human heart that was discovered in a crypt in Cork in 1863. It then was acquired by General Pitt Rivers, the ethnologist and archaeologist, who was stationed in Cork. It later became part of the extraordinary collection of artefacts which are housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. When found, the heart was encased in a lead cyst in the walls of the crypt – the person within whom the heart beat is unknown and undated. For Heartship, the borrowed heart will make it’s return to Cork. We are thrilled to announce that the heart will be on display in The Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, from the 15th – 23rd September.
Heartship has been made possible by the kind support of Cork City Council, The Irish Naval Service, The Glucksman Gallery – UCC, Crawford Art Gallery, and participating artists.

LHASA
The Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival finale. The captivating melodies of Mexican-American singer songwriter Lhasa de Sela are brought back to the stage in a heartfelt tribute from musician fans, friends, and collaborators.

Cork Opera House
Sunday 15 September 2019
8pm / €35*

“a heart-wrenching tribute” – Loud and Quiet

Originally developed at 37d03d festival in Berlin, this special live performance comes to Cork Opera House for one night only as the finale act of the Sounds From a Safe Harbour Festival 2019.

When Lhasa passed away on New Year’s Day 2010 in Montreal, it was said that it started to snow and didn’t stop for four days. Aged just 37, Lhasa had found international admiration over three albums mixing country with gospel; Mexican with Gypsy folk; and drawing on her international roots singing lyrics in English, French and Spanish.

An eclectic line-up of artists including Andrew Barr (The Barr Brothers), Bryce Dessner (The National), Clarice Jensen (American Contemporary Music Ensemble), composer Dustin O’Halloran, musician Emma Broughton, musician and composer Joel Shearer, singer-songwriter Leslie Feist (Feist); singer-songwriter and guitarist Melissa Laveaux; Pauline DeLassus (Mina Tindle) and musician Todd Dahlhoff will bring Lhasa’s multi-lingual songs and music to life on the Cork Opera House stage.

SWAN LAKE
Teaċ Daṁsa’s acclaimed production of Swan Lake/Loch na hEala makes its Cork debut as part of Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival.

Cork Opera House
Tuesday 10 – Thursday 12 September 2019
8pm / €30*

Teaċ Daṁsa’s acclaimed production of  Swan Lake/Loch na hEala makes it’s Cork debut from 10th to 12th September at Cork Opera House. The production premiered at the 2016 Dublin Theatre Festival, for which it won the Irish Times Best Production Award, captivating both audiences and critics alike, and has since toured extensively nationally, and internationally to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea, UK, Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg and Moscow.

Performed by a company of 13 world-class performers, including actor Mikel Murfi and new cast member Rosaleen Linehan, Swan Lake/Loch na hEala is interwoven with storytelling, song and live music. The score, composed by the original Slow Moving Clouds line up, combines Nordic and Irish traditional music with minimalist and experimental influences. With powerful imagery, this Swan Lake is rooted in the Midlands of Ireland where ancient mythology and the modern world collide. 

SPIRITUAL AMERICA
A collection of songs exploring secular spirituality, composed by William Brittelle

CIT Cork School of Music
Sunday 15 September 2019
2pm / €12*

Featuring special guests: Metropolis Ensemble, Arone Dyer (Buke and Gase), Andy Stack (Wye Oak), Sam Amidon

“One of the most astounding records of 2019” – Indyweek USA
Spiritual America, a cycle of seven songs, is the soundtrack to an emotional journey Brittelle undertook to reconcile his youth in a conservative Christian North Carolina household with his adult life as an “agnostic Buddhist” living in Brooklyn, and to address his questions about the nature of faith. David Hajdu of the Nation praised Spiritual America for its “utter fearlessness” and “quirky beauty” and Brittelle himself for producing “silo-bombing music that is at once free-ranging, formally adventurous, unconventionally beautiful, and a joyful thrill to experience.”

Witness Brittelle’s Spiritual America at Sounds from a Safe Harbour alongside the Grammy-nominated New York City–based contemporary chamber orchestra Metropolis Ensemble, drummer-percussionist Andy Stack of American rock duo Wye Oak, Arone Dyer of experimental pop act Buke and Gase, and American Folk artist Sam Amidon. For this performance in Cork Brittelle has created a revised chamber-based reimagining of the record complete with newly developed material.

DON’T FEAR THE LIGHT
Sounds from a Safe Harbour presents the Irish Premiere of DON’T FEAR THE LIGHT performed by the Minimalist Dream House Quartet.

Cork Opera House
Saturday 14 September

2pm / €35*

As part of Sounds from a Safe Harbour 2019, the extraordinary ‘Minimalist Dream House’ quartet of Katia and Marielle Labèque, Bryce Dessner (member and founder of The National) and David Chalmin (La Terre Invisible) present the Irish premiere of ‘Don’t Fear The Light’, an exploration of minimalist compositions by new composers.


In 2013, the Labèque sisters – ’The best piano duo in front of an audience today’ (New York Times), recorded ‘Minimalist Dream House’, a double album celebrating the works of minimal music pioneers and their successors. Katia and Marielle Labèque now present a new version for two pianos and two guitars with Bryce Dessner and David Chalmin, performing works by the likes of Thom Yorke, Steve Reich, Timo Andres, Philip Glass, as well as Bryce Dessner and David Chalmin.

GREY AREA
Cork Premiere Of Grey Area By Local Composer Sam Perkins.


Kino Cork
Saturday 14 September
3pm / FREE

LOWLANDS AWAY

Lapps Quay
Sunday 15 September
3pm / FREE

The launch of a unique currach building project created in collaboration with Meitheal Mara. This event will feature Irish and International artists from the festival programme.

Kindly sponsored by Cork City Council