– Patrick Ellis
Around the Clocks is a flexible outdoor work for open instrumentation, where the performers visit different public clocks around Dublin and play a short musical excerpt at the start of each hour (either in a 24, 12 or 6 hour performance). Linking in with Biosphere’s comment on climate change, the duration of each movement, is determined from a translation of the average global temperature from the past 24, 12 or 6 years. As a result, the time of each movement gradually on average becomes shorter and shorter. In conjunction with this, the number of instrumentalists will change over the course of the piece and the material will begin to deviate more from what is heard at the beginning of the first few hours. You are more than welcome to pop in and out from several movements, or you may wish to follow the piece for each hour, it is completely up to you.
( Watch video here )
“After reading about the call for works as part of the upcoming biosphere event, I saw it not only as an opportunity to take a risk and to write something different to what I usually compose, but also as a way to write something that responds to the environmental changes and challenges that we face now and in the future.”
Patrick Ellis (b. 1994, London) is a composer who is presently based in Oxfordshire, UK. He has had his music performed, recorded and workshopped by many ensembles and soloists, including (among others) Orkest de Ereprijs, Residentie Orkest, Kluster 5, The New European Ensemble, The Hodiernal Quartet, The Fidelio Trio, Decibel, Ensemble KROCK, 315 Ensemble, Noszferatu, Fenella Humphreys, Kathryn Williams, Xenia Pestova, Alfian Emir Adytia, Fumiko Miyachi and Benjamin Powell.
He holds a Masters degree in composition from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag (Royal Conservatoire of The Hague) and a Bachelors degree in composition from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
He holds a Masters degree in composition from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag (Royal Conservatoire of The Hague) and a Bachelors degree in composition from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.