Dear Editor,

I would like to congratulate David Flynn on his initiative in forming the new Young Composers’ Collective, as outlined in your issue of March–April. As we frequently tell them, composers can do a lot to help themselves. The informal contacts they make in the course of their daily life and work can prove very fruitful alongside the more formal promotion undertaken by the Association of Irish Composers and the Contemporary Music Centre. It is good to have the YCC contributing to our joint endeavours.

David comments that ‘CMC has a very tough screening process’, but I would recommend readers to read the guidelines for Composer representation on our web-site (www.cmc.ie/composers/representation.html) and make their own judgement on this.

As the national collection of Irish contemporary music, CMC must have clear, published criteria by which new works are added to its library and sound archive. However, as we said in our letter to David recommending him to re-apply for representation when he is a little further along in his career, this does not preclude him or anyone else from availing of the Contemporary Music Centre’s wide range of other services. In fact, as the many young composers who use CMC and who are not yet formally represented can testify, we do a lot to assist them in the early stages of their development.

But composers (young or otherwise): we can’t help you if we don’t know you exist, so make contact with us!

Eve O’Kelly, Director
Contemporary Music Centre
Fishamble Street, Dublin 8