Preserve the Strangers

Preserve the Strangers

Preserve the Strangers is a new concert-length collaborative composition from Seán Clancy and Matt Sargent for electronics, keyboard instruments and plucked strings. Through research and defamiliarisation of migration song, vernacular New England song, and sea shanties, the piece draws attention to the histories of migration whether voluntary or forced across the Atlantic ocean. By exploring this history and the music that arises through cultural pluralism, it is clear that migration is intrinsic to what humans do. Plus ça change

Matt Sargent (b.1984) is a composer, guitarist, and recording engineer based in New York, where he is an assistant professor of music at Bard College. A versatile artist with an international reputation for his prolific musical life on the concert stage and in the recording studio, Sargent’s music has been described as “remarkable from all angles.” (Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine)

His albums include Songs and Clouds (Cold Blue Music, 2027), One Wall is the Desert (Harmonic Ooze, 2026), Walk In Praise of All Metals (Sawyer Editions, 2026), Illuminations (Sawyer Editions, 2024), Bend (Waveform Alphabet, 2023), Between Time and After (Chen Li Music, 2023), Tide (A Wave Press, 2020), Separation Songs (Cold Blue Music, 2019), Tide (for ten basses) (Marginal Frequency, 2019), and Ghost Music (Weighter Recordings, 2018).

His compositions have been described as “bringing a sharpened sense of the transcendental into the 21st century” (Paul Muller, Sequenza21) and “a veritable fountain of intensifying, kaleidoscopic spumes.” (Peter Margasak, Bandcamp). On Ghost Music, Bill Meyer writes, “this music isn’t about following in anyone’s footsteps; it uses bare resources to establish a bounded and essential place.” (The Wire Magazine)

Seán Clancy (b.1984) is an experimental composer and performer from Ireland. His music has been described as "an affecting reminder of minimalism’s capacity to feel deeply personal and purposeful" (The Quietus); and "Beautifully simple yet elusive" (The New York Times). He writes music that is often long, involving sustained tones for acoustic instruments, electronic instruments, environmental sounds, and people doing things in performance not involving any instruments at all. For the most part his practice is involved with the act of translating non-musical things into music as a way to draw attention to our lived experiences.

For more than a decade close collaboration and co-composition has informed much of Seán’s work, and in recent years he has enjoyed co-composing with groups such as Bozzini Quartet, Plus Minus Ensemble, and Crash Ensemble, as well as composers/writers Katie Kim, Andy Ingamells, Michael Wolters, Emilie Pine, and Matt Sargent. His work has been performed in many different venues from beaches to prestigious concert halls as far west as Albuquerque, and as far east as Beijing. He is an Assistant Professor in Composition at UCD in Ireland and previously spent thirteen years as a Senior Lecturer at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Running time approx. one hour