EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT

EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT premiered in Darmstadt, Germany on 2 August 2016 and explores the existential reality of reality of life in 2016: a world dominated by technology, incipient climate change and financial inequality. It investigates the insidious presence of the internet and the way in which it is embedded as a fundamental infrastructure of contemporary life, even though we do not fully understand what to do with it, how it works, or how the way that it works continually changes.

The work has developed out of Dr Walshe's research into ‘The New Discipline’ - a theory of compositional and performance practice that restores the role of composer as performer. The composer performs as vocalist in the work alongside the Arditti Quartet and the films that run throughout the 40-minute performance were also shot by her.

One of the most important ways in which the work manifests its insights into contemporary reality is through the text. The development of the score, which is mostly presented verbally, allows the members of the string quartet to have moments of highly controlled improvisation; this is turn enables the composer-performer to shape these moments from within the ensemble, rather than through a conventionally notated score that has to be executed perfectly.