A project in Clare exploring the creation of a new work for musicians with visual impairments has been awarded a grant of €11,100 as part of the 2017 Arts Council Local Arts Collaborative Scheme. 

The development of the Symphony will be a collaboration between Clare Arts Office, the 3l online learning platform for musicians, the National Council for the Blind, and Dave Flynn’s Irish Memory Orchestra, who perform music only from memory. 

Emerging from discussion between composer Flynn and Ceara Conway (Clare Arts Office Embrace for Arts & People with Disabilities Coordinator), the project will develop ways of translating musical notation to braille, creating an online learning platform, and mentoring for musicians with visual impairment. It will also involve tailored disability training with Artists Disability Ireland for everyone involved. The final work itself will then be devised by the Irish Memory Orchestra for and with participating musicians, selected from an open call for submissions.  

Speaking about the project, Conway said:

Through our Embrace for Arts and People with Disabilities programme we provide art, drama, dance and music workshops for artists with specific physical and mental needs. This project has huge implications in regards to its capacity to create opportunities for accomplished musicians with visual impairments to perform and work with a professional orchestra as well as the capacity to develop and disseminate orchestral online learning musical aides.

See further details at https://goo.gl/Z3tH8k.

In other IMO news, the Orchestra will premiere Dave Flynn’s new ‘Memory Symphony’, featuring Máirtín O’Connor on accordion, on 4 November in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, with a preview on 3 November in the Raheen Woods Hotel in Athenry. For more, visit www.irishmemoryorchestra.com