Electric Circus with Sarah Watts

Electric Circus presents an exciting programme of new music for bass clarinet and electronics, including several UK premieres.

Performers
Sarah Watts, bass clarinet
Peter O’Doherty, electronics

Programme
Sarah Watts – Sounds of Raasay
Peter O’Doherty – Gloss *
Enrique Raxach – Chimaera
Sungji Hong – Ekvallein
Miroslav Spasov – Johann and Eric
Sohrab Uduman – …after it’s in the air again…

Electric Circus is Ireland’s newest contemporary music ensemble. With a focus on works that intertwine acoustic instruments and 3d electronic sound, the group commissions new work, develops collaborative projects and facilitates artist residencies in North-West Ireland. Electric Circus is an initiative of Northern Lights Project and is managed and directed by Peter O’Doherty.

* The development of Peter O'Doherty's piece was supported by an Artist and Cultural Practitioner Award from Derry City and Strabane District Council.

Sarah Watts studied clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music with Angela Malsbury and Victoria Soames Samek (bass clarinet). She then decided to specialise in bass clarinet and continued her studies at the Rotterdam Conservatorium bass clarinet with Henri Bok, funded by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and a Leverhulme Trust Studentship. She was awarded the Exxon prize for the best classical music student in Rotterdam.

Sarah specialises on the bass clarinet and has gained an international reputation as an artist, teacher and researcher on the instrument. She has performed solo repertoire across the UK, Ireland, Asia, Europe and the Americas and has attracted composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Piers Hellawell and William Sweeney to write works for her. 

Sarah is Director Performance at the University of Sheffield, where she also teaches clarinet and bass clarinet. She hosts bass clarinet and clarinet courses on the Isle of Raasay in Scotland and has run and taught on many wind chamber music courses in the UK and France. She has given workshops on bass clarinet technique at many establishments around the world and was bass clarinet tutor at RNCM from 2012 - 2022.

Sarah performs with Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, rarescale and SCAW. She has completed a PhD in bass clarinet multiphonic analysis at Keele University and has published ‘Spectral Immersions; A Comprehensive Guide to the Theory and Practice of Bass Clarinet Multiphonics’ via Metropolis publishers.

Peter O’Doherty studied at the Universities of Edinburgh and Ulster, specialising in composition and contemporary performance. His music and sound works have been performed in Ireland, Scotland, the former Yugoslavia, Finland and The Netherlands, most recently by the ensembles Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble and rarescale.

As a performer of electroacoustic music he has appeared at RAMP Festival of Contemporary and Experimental Music (Rathmullan, Donegal, Ireland), Belfast International Arts Festival and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

He is artistic director of Northern Lights Project, a Derry-based organisation that promotes, produces and commissions new music. He recently founded Electric Circus to promote new music for acoustic instruments and spatialised electronic sound. 

Northern Lights Project is funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.