The Last Time I Died (CD or Download – NMC)

The Last Time I Died is the first full-length album from the Irish composer Ailís Ní Ríain. The latest in NMC’s Debut Disc series features a group of musically diverse artists performing a rich selection of Ní Ríain’s chamber and small-scale works, the “theatre, intimacy, and nuance” of which has occupied the composer over much of the previous 20 years of her career.

Focal points on the album include Revelling/Reckoning, a two-movement work for wind quintet and percussion, which aims to reflect the contradictory nature of existence, heard here in a recording by the New London Chamber Ensemble and another musician who has embraced her hearing challenges in her artistry, the iconic percussionist Evelyn Glennie.