Linda Buckley [1979]
Circuit Bend [2022]

Commissioned by the National String Quartet Foundation with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland

Performed by the Ficino Quartet
National Concert Hall, 11th December 2022 (live audio recording)

Circuit Bend is inspired by my experience of working with analog modular synthesizers, most notably the Moog System 55 which is characterized by its use of patch cords without a keyboard, oscillators and a step sequencer. I was particularly taken by Robert Moog’s approach to building the synth, which he saw in a most human, emotive way: “Everything has some consciousness, and we tap into that. It is about energy at its most basic level.” Linda Buckley

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Linda Buckley is an award winning Irish composer (born in Cork, 1979) who creates electronic and acoustic music, and has a particular interest in working across many disciplines, most notably film and in the realm of drone and dark ambient music. Her NMC record From Ocean’s Floor was featured by Iggy Pop on BBC Radio 6 as “beautiful music – here is somebody really special”. Her work has been described as “sublime and brilliant” (BBC Radio 3), “engaging with an area of experience that new music is generally shy of, which, simplified and reduced to a single word, I’d call ecstasy” (Bob Gilmore, Journal of Music). She has written extensively for orchestra (BBC Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ NSO), was elected to Aosdana in 2021, and is a member of the Screen Composers Guild of Ireland.

She has worked in many collaborative contexts including scoring film by Kathryn Ferguson (Nothing Compares co-composed with Irene Buckley, nominated for Best Score at the IFTA Awards and Cinema Eye Honors), Mark Cousins (Like a Huge Scotland and A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things), Pat Collins (That He May Face the Rising Sun co-composed with Irene Buckley, Living in a Coded Land, Henry Glassie: Field Work) and Tadhg O’Sullivan (To The Moon). Awards include a Fulbright scholarship to New York University, a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Frankfurt Visual Music Award (for Silk Chroma) and Gold at the New York Festivals Radio Awards (for Mother’s Blood, Sister Songs documentary with Athena Media).

Recent collaborations include new work for Liam Byrne and Crash Ensemble, Gudrun Gut (Einstürzende Neubauten), Andrew Zolinsky (for Dark Music Days, hcmf and New Music Dublin). She was invited by John Schaefer’s New Sounds Live (WNYC) to present the New York premiere of a new live score to the silent horror film Nosferatu (co-composed with Irene Buckley) at Brookfield Place. Linda holds a Music Degree from University College Cork, a Masters in Music and Media Technologies and a PhD in Composition from Trinity College Dublin. She has lectured in Composition at Trinity College Dublin, Pulse College at Windmill Lane and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In September 2020 her NMC record, From Ocean’s Floor was released: “The Irish composer combines traditional séan-nos singing with an electronic soundscape, connecting past and future … It’s clear how much Buckley deeply connects her past to her present, opening up possibilities for our mutual musical futures.” Guardian – Album of the Month, ‘a masterpiece in connecting the past and future.’ Evening Standard