Curious Collections is part of the story-telling tradition, interweaving early and folk music with myths and tales through recorders, hurdy-gurdies, voice and electronics. This unique combination immerses the audience within the story told by the music and the words.

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Formed in 2010 out of a series of successful collaborations between Férdia Stone-Davis and Jason Dixon, Curious Collections reflects on the long established relationship between text and music. The experiential aspects of the whole are paramount - no given element is privileged. Rather, the disparate strands are intertwined to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

The most recent work by Curious Collections is a setting of The Given Note, a poem by contemporary Irish writer Seamus Heaney, with the Port na bPúcai air (The Fairies' Tune). This was premiered in December 2010 and featured in the Sonic Arts concert series at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and the Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music 2011, Belfast. The duo will also present the work in a series of paper-performance discussions throughout 2011.

Curious Collections are currently working on two full 45-minute programmes: Flow and Fragmentation, a programme which merges excerpts from The New Atlantis, the utopian vision of Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), with an exploration of two works from Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-Hof, and A Dirge for King Niall of the Nine Hostages, combining texts from Kuno Meyer's Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry with music from the William Ballet Lute Book.