Dorothy Murphy, one of the first recipients of the Music Network/Arts Council Recording Scheme.
With Nearly Seventy Releases Funded, Recording Scheme Enters Eighth Year
Since 2006, the Arts Council and Music Network have run the Music Recording Scheme, an annual award made to musicians and groups across various genres to help fund their releases. The scheme covers a comprehensive range of costs involved in bringing out a record, including recording, mixing and mastering engineers, studio time, travel, manufacturing costs and publicity.
Nearly €0.5 million has been spent on the award in total over seven rounds, with nine or ten recipients each year. Awards have ranged between €1,400 and the maximum allowable of €10,000 and nearly seventy releases have been supported so far. For many artists, from traditional musicians to jazz groups, the award provides a crucial support, allowing them to bring projects to fruition to a professional standard — recording projects that would be otherwise to expensive or ambitious to produce.
With the deadline fast approaching for this year’s scheme – applications should submitted by 5pm on 3 October – we’ve compiled a selection of releases funded by the award since its inception.
2012
Matthew Jacobson’s ReDiviDeR was awarded €7980 to produce a new album, I Dig Monk, Tuned, which has just been released.
2011
Recorder player Laoise O’Brien was awarded €9,100 to release a record of early music and folk music aimed at children, titled Sonnets from the Cradle.
2010
Multi-instrumentalist Seán Mac Erlaine was awarded €3,870 to record his debut album, Long After the Music is Gone.
2009
The National Chamber Choir was awarded €9,000 to record an album of pieces by Irish composers, titled One Day Fine. The following track, Everything is Ridiculous, is by the composer Andrew Hamilton.
2008
The composer Donnacha Dennehy was awarded €4,300 to record two of his piano pieces with New York pianist Lisa Moore for release on the Cantaloupe Label.
2007
Jazz musician Francesco Turrisi was awarded €8,000 to record an album of works inspired by seventeenth-century Italian Baroque music.
2006
Vocalist and composer Dorothy Murphy was awarded €9,300 to record her album Calling.
