Composer John Lonergan from Waterford has been announced as the winner of the Seán Ó Riada Composition Competition for 2017. His work, City Shower, will be premiered by Chamber Choir Ireland at the Cork International Choral Festival on 28 April at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral.

Commenting on his win, Lonergan said

I was honoured and delighted to hear that I had won such a prestigious award as the Seán Ó Riada Composition Competition. Although I haven’t composed many choral pieces, this accolade will encourage me to do more in terms of my composition both contemporary and choral.

Lonergan trained in piano and oboe and was part of the De La Salle Senior Choir that won the schools’ competition at the Cork International Choral Festival in 1984. 

His work was chosen by a panel consisting of composers Rhona Clarke and David Fennessy, and Paul Hillier, Artistic Director of Chamber Choir Ireland.

City Shower, a setting of Jonathan Swift’s poem ‘A Description of a City Shower’, will be premiered alongside a new work by Fennessy and music by Lassus, Bernd Franke and Peter Maxwell Davies.

The Seán Ó Riada competition has been run annually since 1972 by the Cork International Choral Festival, with a cash prize donated by the Ó Riada family. Recent winners include Amanda Feery (2016), Eoghan Desmond (2015), Donal MacErlaine (2014) and Solfa Carlile (2013). This year, two runner-up works were also announced: Michael Doherty’s The Art of Dying and Criostóir Ó Loingsigh’s Scél Lemm Duib.

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