In 2015 I worked on Meeting House, designing and installing a custom musical instrument within a Georgian meeting house in Offaly, with the help of Steve O’Connor and the Meeting House project team. It took a week to build, and over 3km of jute and rayon twines (materials of the industrial heritage of Clara, Co. Offaly). What resulted was a giant harp within the building, that you could walk through and play. Hardwood ‘floating bridges’ collect vibrations from the strings and allow amplification.

Improvised composition / perfomance – using sounds only from the strings, recorded in a day:

At planning / conception stage…

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The Meeting House Project was a collaboration with Maeve Stone and Tom Lane, with help from Fionnuala Gygax and Steve O’Connor. Together with Clara Musical Society a music and drama performance was devised within the building and using the instrument. Kindly funded by Offaly Arts Office through the Percent for Arts Scheme 2015.

Putting the instrument together…

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