Stano Takes His ‘In Between Silence’ Project To Galway

Groundbreaking Irish composer and electronic experimentalist Stano, brings his latest work, 'In Between Silence’, described by New York reviewer Rosie Vaughn as “a masterclass in storytelling”, to the Galway International Arts Festival this Sunday.

This event takes place in the O’Donoghue Theatre, NUI, Galway, at 5.30pm on Sunday July 23. It will feature a film where people such as Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Joseph O’Connor, Dermot Bolger, Denise Dunphy, John Minihan, Robert Ballagh, Brian Keenan, Olaf Tyaransen, Barbara O’Shea, and Mick O’Dea, tell personal stories, backed by Stano's music.

“I ask each storyteller to relate an event in their life of significance to them," says Stano. "I create a musical composition for each participant in advance of their coming to the studio. I don’t hear the story and the participants don’t hear the composition until they start to record. I want to capture the spontaneous response of each person to the music and the impact it has on their delivery.

"What I’m trying to do is underpin the story with an atmosphere, with a mood, because stories are really visual and my background is in manipulating sound and almost doing a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist, that’s really what I’m doing. It is harking back to when we sat around the fire telling stories, the crackle of the fire would have been the soundscape, I’m trying to recreate that feeling."

Hot Press senior editor Olaf Tyaransen has a piece entitled ‘A Story of O’ featured. “I’ve long been an admirer of Stano’s work and so I was delighted to be included,” Olaf says. “We recorded it back in January and he only finished working on it a fortnight ago. He brought in some really superb musicians to work on it, too. The percussion is by Whipping Boy’s Colm Hassett, and Sean Coleman – who played with Eels and American Music Club – did the guitars. They’ve all done a really great job.”