The last two months have seen a number of announcements in music and the arts, including news of an international opera prize, a jazz residency, a singer development programme and several funding announcements. 

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Fedora – the European Circle of Philanthropists of Opera and Ballet – has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Fedora Prizes Biennale, with new works by Irish composers Jennifer Walshe and Michael Gallen nominated in the opera category. The prize, valued at €100,000, aims to advance opera through innovation and international collaborations.

MARS by Jennifer Walshe explores our relationship with the planet. It combines the composer’s irreverent sense of humour with a rigorous scientific approach to questions of inter-planetary colonisation, space travel and human ethics. Produced by Irish National Opera in collaboration with Opéra de Lille and co-directed by Walshe and Tom Creed, MARS will feature an ensemble cast of four singers and 12 musicians.

The Curing Line by Michael Gallen is a multi-platform project by Irish music-theatre company Straymaker. It follows Gallen’s 2021 opera Elsewhere, which was also nominated for the Fedora prize. The Curing Line explores themes of healing, interconnectivity, loss of culture and environmental collapse through the story of a woman who inherits a life-saving cure but forgets how to use it.

Also nominated in the opera category are Hôtel Moctezuma by Opéra Orchestre National de Montpellier Occitanie (France), Les Nids d’oiseaux by La Monnaie/De Munt (Belgium), LUMUMBA! by Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden (Germany), Between Two Lights by Netherlands Chamber Choir and Ring of our Time – The eternal battle for resources by World Opera Lab (Netherlands).

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in spring 2025.

Visit www.fedora-platform.com.

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Improvised Music Company has announced that percussionist and composer Éamonn Cagney has been awarded a residency as part of the 2024 Navigator Jazz Residency programme, in partnership with the Riverbank Arts Centre in Kildare.

Cagney is the fourth musician announced for the residency programme, which offers jazz and improvising musicians time and space to develop their work.

Cagney is a hand-drum percussionist who has released the solo album Convergence (2011) as well as collaborative records including The Art of the Duo with Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu.  His residency will begin this month and will run into September.

Commenting on the news, Cagney said

Solo work is the heart of any creative artist’s practice. It flows out from this seed experience into all of our collaborations and creative relationships, into the music and the multiplicity of other disciplines that we love to work in. And of course it flows into our daily life interactions, transforming our reality into something new and momentous. To have the opportunity to deepen this at Riverbank through the IMC Navigator residency is a very special opportunity for me. I’m very grateful and really looking forward to spending time in this beautiful part of Ireland.

Visit www.improvisedmusic.ie.

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Glyndebourne opera has selected nine young singers for its Glyndebourne Academy 2024. This programme supports singers aged 16–26 who have faced challenges in their musical development, whether personal circumstances, geographical, financial barriers or other factors. The Academy features a summer residency at the University of Chichester (which took place on 11–17 August) and a residency at Glyndebourne from 4 to 6 October.

The 2024 participants are mezzo-soprano Rose Berelowitz, soprano Noor Bhatia, soprano Charlotte Craven, baritone Caradog Jones, soprano Ilona Nastase, soprano Eleanor Ninham, mezzo-soprano Jessica Parnell, tenor Ifan RhysThomas, and soprano Chelsie Robinson.

Led by Mary King, tutoring includes coaching in vocal techniques, movement and language. Participants also engage with Glyndebourne’s Artistic Director Stephen Langridge and attend performances at Chichester Festival Theatre and Glyndebourne. 

Applications for Glyndebourne Academy 2025 will open in November 2024. Visit www.glyndebourne.com.

Top row: Rose Berelowitz, Noor Bhatia, Charlotte Craven and Caradog Jones.
Bottom row: Ilona Nastase, Eleanor Ninham, Jessica Parnell, Ifan Rhys Thomas and Chelsie Robinson (Photos: Richard Hubert Smith). 

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The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has allocated €1.07m to six projects under the Shared Island Creative Youth Partnerships initiative. The funding supports projects across the island of Ireland that foster connections and collaboration among young people.

Among the recipients are:

• The Shared Island Songwriting Project by Music Generation Laois, featuring residential songwriting workshops for young people from Laois, Offaly and Northern Ireland;
• Tallaght Community Arts for their To the Power of Three project, which involves young people from Derry, Dublin, and Wexford;
• Arts and education organisation Narrative 4 for their Living Legend project, which focuses on storytelling inspired by the Aran Islands and the Giant’s Causeway;
• Street performance group Macnas for their Future Parade project, which creates parades with young people from Belfast and Galway;
• Youth and family charity Extern Northern Ireland for their project for vulnerable youth in Belfast and Dublin using Theatre of the Oppressed practices; and
• Student literature organisation Fighting Words for their project Creative Connections – Shared Writing Across the Island, engaging young people in creative writing.

Commenting on the funding, Taoiseach Simon Harris TD said:

These projects span a wide range of art forms and demographics, reflecting the diversity, creativity and potential of young people across the island of Ireland.  Each of the six projects funded will generate new connections between our young people and help create a shared future on this island.

Visit www.gov.ie.

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In other news, last month pop singer-songwriter CMAT was nominated for the Mercury Prize Album of the Year for her second record Crazymad, for Me. Also nominated were Charli XCX for her album BRAT, Barry Can’t Swim for When Will We Land?, and The Last Dinner Party for Prelude to Ecstasy. The 2024 Mercury Award Prize ceremony will be broadcast live from Abbey Road Studios on 5 September at 8pm on BBC Four.

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, has announced that solicitor John Cronin has been appointed as the new Chair of the Abbey Theatre. Cronin is a former Chair and Managing Partner at law firm McCann FitzGerald Solicitors and has served for almost three years as a non-executive Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Minister Martin has also announced the appointment of Catherine Magee to the Board of Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland. Existing Board member, composer Ray Harman, has been appointed as the new Chairperson of the Board.

Finally, the Arts Council has also announced author Eithne Shortall as the John Broderick Writer in Residence for 2024. Shortall is an author, columnist, and broadcaster and has published five novels, including Love in Row 27 and Grace After Henry, the latter winning Best Page Turner at the UK’s Big Book Awards. Shortall will begin her residency in September 2024.

For June appointments, see here.

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