Fergus Johnston

News

17th February 2005: Dublin Premier of 'Rashad's Words'

As pre-publicity for the RTE Living Music Festival, 2005, a workshop took place in the Project Arts Centre on Saturday 12th which featured Peadar Townsend giving a performance of Fergus Johnston's solo percussion piece, "Rashad's Words", which is a piece dedicated to and inspired by Florida Death Row inmate Norman Parker Jr (who has adopted the Muslim name Rashad) with whom the composer corresponded. In this piece, the performer plays on an array of percussion arranged to be approximately the same size as a cell on Florida's Death Row: 1.8 metres by 2.7 metres. This was the first performance of Rashad's Words in the Irish Republic. The first performance took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Swedish percussionist Johnny Axelsson, at the 1999 Sonorities festival in the Queen's University, which commissioned the piece.