Kilkenny Arts Festival’s Secret Music Series is back for 2021 and today it’s the turn of guitarist Barry Halpin.
This is the fourth release in the pre-recorded series for this year’s festival, following performances from Laoise Kelly, Francesco Turrisi and singer Nell Ní Chróinín.
O’Halpin is a Dublin-based composer and electric guitarist, and a member of leading Irish contemporary music group Crash Ensemble, as well as having been the group’s Composer-in-Residence in 2018-2021.
From 2018-20 he was the Arts & Humanities Artist-in-Residence at Parity Studios, University College Dublin. He is a composing and performing member of Dublin experimental rock trio Alarmist with whom he has released four records to international critical acclaim.
Barry’s music combines liminal timbres and microtonal sonorities with a strongly intuitive melodic and rhythmic streak, and a porous attitude to genre-boundary. As a composer-performer, he uses invented tunings and unorthodox techniques to explore new uses of the electric guitar in the contemporary chamber ensemble.
Watch: Barry O’Halpin #KAF21
For more on the series, visit kilkennyarts.ie.
