Notes

Notes

Gig GuideMany readers will be aware that JMI sends out a bulletin and gig guide email every Monday. The email features nationwide event listings, the latest news from the music world and frequent competitions for tickets and CDs. Subscribe for free at the...

Gig Guide
Many readers will be aware that JMI sends out a bulletin and gig guide email every Monday. The email features nationwide event listings, the latest news from the music world and frequent competitions for tickets and CDs. Subscribe for free at the top righthand corner of this page.


Ardee Baroque
Ardee Baroque, County Louth’s period music festival, takes place for the fifth time this year on 14–16 November. The Irish Baroque Orchestra, directed by Monica Huggett, is at the core of this year’s festival, presenting a programme entitled ‘Baroque A–Z’, which includes the music of Albinoni, Biber, Handel, Lully, Vivaldi and Zelenka. Speaking to JMI, Brian Harten, the Arts Officer for County Louth, traced the development of the festival over the past five years:

‘In previous years, we looked at martial music (2004), links between Irish and baroque music (2005), Bach and his contemporaries (2006) and the first complete period performance in Ireland of Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonica (2007). The first stage of the development of any festival is getting established, and this first five-year cycle of Ardee Baroque has always been about creating space and recognition.  It is the only orchestral baroque music festival on the island of Ireland, the only baroque music festival of any kind on the eastern half of the island and the only baroque festival where an orchestra is in residence in the community for a week prior to the performances.’

Irish Baroque Orchestra co-founder Mark Duley will be giving a solo organ recital and the vocal group, New York Polyphony, will be giving their European debut, with a programme focusing on the English Tudor polyphony of Byrd and Tallis. A series of workshops in schools will also feature, as well as lectures by historians John Rountree and Fr Michael Murtagh.
createlouth.ie/ardeebaroque


Traditional Music Stamps
An Post has launched a new set of stamps celebrating Irish traditional musicians. The new set, painted by Finbarr O’Connor, includes Planxty (55c), Dé Danann (55c), The Bothy Band (82c) and the Tulla Céili Band (82c), all depicted in the 1970s. Speaking at the launch of the collection, Planxty member Andy Irvine said, ‘Stamp collecting was my childhood hobby. Little did I think that, one day, I might become a collectible myself!’

This is the second set of stamps based on traditional music in two years. The previous set included pictures of the Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, The Dubliners, The Chieftains and Altan. The stamps can be purchased at the GPO’s philatelic shop.
irishstamps.ie


Scratch the Surface
The Brighton-based ensemble Scratch the Surface will be touring Ireland in November, with concerts in Kerry (12 November), Bray (14 November) and Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery (16 November). Founded by Irish composer and violist Conall Gleeson in 2006, the ensemble will be bringing a programme of music by Irish composers, including Donnacha Dennehy, Linda Buckley and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, as well as non-Irish composers Claudia Molitor, Steve Reich and Roderik de Man. Gleeson talked to JMI about wanting to bring the ensemble to Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery, which houses the Francis Bacon Studio:

‘The Hugh Lane is an exciting place to give a concert, particularly because of the contextual resonance of the Francis Bacon Studio. I always like to reference the site of performance through the performance itself. The very literal transportation of the Francis Bacon Studio from London to Dublin, speck by speck, dust particle by dust particle is a most extraordinary event, totally extreme and yet was absolutely exciting and exotic to my imagination. The Francis Bacon Studio is a place that embodies the banal, the chaotic, the ad hoc, and yet is mysterious and wonderful. It pokes at those conventions that seek to position art in some realm of transcendence.’

scratchthesurface.org

William Kennedy Piping Festival
Rakish, an electro-acoustic piece by Andrew Dinan and Niall Vallely celebrating the 100th anniversary of travelling piper Johnny Doran, will be performed at this year’s William Kennedy Piping Festival, which runs 13–16 November in Armagh.

The festival includes many other concerts, talks, workshops and sessions as well as the launch of a new book, Bagpipes: A National Collection of a National Treasure by Hugh Cheape. The talks take place under the guise of the second William Kennedy Piping Conference, which covers diverse topics such as pipering in the British Army and bagpipe revivals. The Market Place Theatre Art Gallery will hold an exhibition of pipering-themed paintings for the duration of the festival.
wkpf.org

Donegal Orchestra in Residence
Concerto Málaga, a thirteen-piece  string orchestra from southern Spain, has been appointed Orchestra-in-Residence for Donegal. Two members of the orchestra have been working on educational projects in the region since 2006. The project, which is run in conjunction with Donegal County Council and the County Donegal VEC, is planned to run for three years. Conducted by the Italian Massimo Paris, the orchestra will begin the residency with performances in Ballyshannon (27 November) and Letterkenny (28–29 November), presenting a programme of music from Italy and Spain, including Rossini, Paisiello, Rolla and Albéniz. The orchestra will also be working with members of the Donegal Chamber Orchestra and participating in chamber music workshops.

The orchestra’s principal cellist and founder of the Donegal Chamber Orchestra, Víctor Yélamo, told JMI about the scheme:

‘After more than two years of work the time has arrived for students of the Donegal Chamber Orchestra to get involved in the work of a professional chamber orchestra, and also to offer a colourful and interesting classical musical life to the communities of County Donegal.’

concertomalaga.com


Young Musicwide
The traditional music group Fidil, comprised of Ciarán Ó Maonaigh, Aidan O’Donnell and Damien McGeehan from Donegal, will receive the 2008 Young Musicwide award. Over a period of three years, the group will benefit from performance opportunities, a tailored publicity package as well as professional development opportuntities. The group’s eponymous first album, which was reviewed in the September-October issue of JMI, was released earlier this year. See Q&A on page 9 for an interview with Ciarán Ó Maonaigh.
musicnetwork.ie

 

Jonathan Sage
Jonathan Sage, a young London-based clarinettist, will tour Ireland in November with a programme of new music for clarinet and electronics. Sage, who during his time at York University developed strong relationships with Irish composers, will be performing two new commissions by English composer Alexander Harker and Dubliner Jonathan Nangle.

The programme, which features the basset clarinet (an eighteenth century extended clarinet for which Mozart wrote his famous concerto) also includes works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bang on a Can’s Evan Ziporyn, William O. Smith, William Sweeney, Garrett Sholdice and Elliott Carter, who will be one hundred years old in December. Nangle says of his new work, Particle:

‘I use the periodic table as both a source and analogy for my piece. For example, the atomic numbers of groups (the vertical columns) can be used to specify partials in a clarinet sample which may then be generated electronically, thus producing unusual, electronic spectral chords that interact with the live clarinet.’

The tour will reach Dublin (5 November), Limerick (6 November), Galway (7 November) and Cork (11 November) and will also include a lecture-recital at Dundalk Intitute of Technology (12 November).
ergodos.ie

 

Seóirse Bodley Elected Saoi
Seóirse Bodley will be the first composer to be made a Saoi of Aosdána, the state-sponsored academy of Irish artists. Election to Saoi is a rare honour conferred on a distinguished artist, and there is a maximum of seven Saoithe at any one time, the others currently being Louis Le Brocquy, Seamus Heaney, Anthony Cronin, Brian Friel, Patrick Scott and Camille Souter. Previous Saoithe have included the writers Samuel Beckett, Sean Ó Faoláin and Benedict Kiely. Bodley will presented with a gold torc by President McAleese on Monday, 25 November. Bodley will remain a Saoi for life.

Born in Dublin in 1933, Seóirse Bodley is currently Emeritus Professor at University College, Dublin, where he taught for many years. A concert of his music will take place at the National Concert Hall, Dublin on 13 January, 2009 featuring a performance of his song-cycle Never to have lived is best by soprano Sylvia O’Brien. aosdana.artscouncil.ie


Vox Humana on TG4
Bob Quinn’s new film, Vox Humana (notes for a small opera), which features Audrey Corbett directing the Galway Baroque Singers, shall be shown on TG4 on New Year’s Eve. A story of redemption – nearly – it stars Luke Cauldwell as an alcoholic and petty thief. A talented drummer, after the death of his daughter he is reduced to sleeping rough, but begins to find solace as a helper with a choir. According to Quinn, ‘The film is called a small opera because operas are usually tragic, larger than life, but the main character is a real statistic in a society such as ours.’
conamara.org


Little Match Girl Passion
The National Chamber Choir, directed by Paul Hillier, will give the first ever choral performance of New York composer David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion at St Ann’s Church, Dublin on 20 November. Lang was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the work, which was originally written for four voices. Based on the fable by Hans Christian Andersen, in which a girl freezes to death after unsucessfully trying to sell matches in the street, the Little Match Girl Passion, is a thirty-five minute work about – in the composer’s words – ‘suffering’. Lang writes, ‘There are many ways to tell this story. One could convincingly tell it as a story about faith or as an allegory about poverty. What has always interested me, however, is that Andersen tells this story as a kind of parable, drawing a religious and moral equivalency between the suffering of the poor girl and the suffering of Jesus.’

Also on the programme is Giacomo Carissimi’s seventeenth century oratorio Jephte.
nationalchamberchoir.com

Raising your voice
The Arts Council has published a new report on choral singing in Ireland. Entitled Raising Your Voice: Towards a policy for the development of choral music in Ireland, the report has discoved that there are more than 10,000 people singing in over 400 groups across Ireland.

The report found people of all generations engaging in choral singing and a strong volunteer spirit. The Arts Council plans to adopt a new strategic approach to develop the practice of choral singing in the country based on the findings of the report.
artscouncil.ie

Creative Industries
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has launched the Creative Industries Innovation Fund, which will fund creative businesses providing services, events, media and originals (‘artefacts valued for their individuality, creativity and rarity’) in Northern Ireland.

The £5 million scheme, which is related to the Invest NI programme and is part of an overall plan to grow creative industries by 15% in Northern Ireland, will support the creation of new businesses, or the introduction of new creative content, products or services to existing businesses. There are three different funding levels, with maximum amounts of £10,000, £50,000 and £75,000 respectively.  
artscouncil-ni.org

 

Kingston Academy of Music
A new music school has been established in Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. The Kingston Academy of Music will cater to all ages and will provide string, woodwind, brass, percussion and vocal tuition, as well as music theory classes. At the core of the school’s programme will be a series of public performances taking place in Dún Laoghaire and city-centre Dublin.

Pictured above is eleven-year-old singer Regan Buckley from Glasthule, Co. Dublin, who will be the first recipient of a scholarship entitling him to a year’s free tuition.
kingstonacademyofmusic.com


Seán Garvey

The 2008 Annie McNulty Award for a traditional singer who has ‘made a significant contribution to Irish music at home and abroad’ has been awarded to Seán Garvey from Cahirsiveen, Co. Kerry.

Garvey, who also plays guitar, flute and tenor banjo, holds a Masters in Ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick. He has worked much of his life as teacher in Dublin, but now lives in Kenmare where he runs a music school. In 2006, Garvey was named the TG4 Traditional Singer of the Year. He is now singer-in-residence for Gaeltacht Uibh Rathaigh in South Kerry.
seangarvey.ie

 

Stockhausen’s Mantra
A rare performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 1970 work, Mantra, will take place in the Curtis Auditorium of the new Cork School of Music on Thursday, 13 November. The work, for two pianos with live electronics, will be performed by the duo of Pascal Meyer and Xenia Pastova, who also play crotales, woodblocks and use their voices during the piece.
corkorchestralsociety.org

Traditional Music Photographs
A new book of the work of traditional music photographer Tony Kearns has been published by Silver Spear Press, with an introduction by Nicholas Carolan, Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive. Kearns has specialised in photographing Irish traditional musicians and dancers since 1992 and this book, Music & Light, documents fifteen years of his work. The majority of the photographs, which are exclusively black and white, was taken at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy. Kearns told JMI what draws him to traditional musicians as photographic subjects:

‘I am fascinated by the random visual compositions that occur when people gather to play music together, especially when they are comfortable with my presence and ignore me completely. I try to evoke a sense of the music-making and the music itself in each picture. As a closet archivist I am very interested in creating a tangible record of people and events in the world of traditional music.’

See Q&A for a photograph of fiddle player Ciarán Ó Maonaigh taken by Tony Kearns.
tonykearns.net


Offbeat
A new classical music radio show presented by the pianist Karishmeh Felfeli is being broadcast on Dublin City 103.2 FM from 2pm to 3pm every Thursday. The programme, Offbeat, spreads a wide net, touching on electronic music, traditional music and jazz. Felfeli commented to JMI that the new show provides Dublin listeners with ‘a radio music program that offers a progressive alternative from mainstream classical music programming. I’m hoping to achieve a sense of community within the classical music world in Dublin, which will help in developing new audiences for the music itself.’  
karishmeh.com

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Published on 1 November 2008

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