Kevin Volans

'These are voices we need to hear': Louth Contemporary Music Society Festival Starts Today

'These are voices we need to hear': Louth Contemporary Music Society Festival Starts Today

'These are voices we need to hear': Louth Contemporary Music Society Festival Starts Today

‘We Sing for the Future’ takes place online and features work by Sarah Hennies, Fredrik Rasten, Mareike Yin-Yee Lee, Marc Sabat, Kevin Volans, Cornelius Cardew, Julian Anderson and Leo Brouwer.

Published on 14 April 2021

Sticks in the Air

Sticks in the Air

Sticks in the Air

The Colin Currie Quartet gave the Irish premiere of Kevin Volans' '4 Marimbas' at the recent Great Music in Irish Houses festival, as well as performances of works by Reich, Pereira, Xenakis and Stockhausen.

Published on 26 June 2019

Brendan Finan is a teacher and writer living in Meath. He writes a blog at www.brendanfinan.net.

‘There’s an infrastructure that hasn’t been built overnight’: An interview with Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice of Ergodos

‘There’s an infrastructure that hasn’t been built overnight’: An interview with Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice of Ergodos

‘There’s an infrastructure that hasn’t been built overnight’: An interview with Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice of Ergodos

The Irish label Ergodos, run by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice, has just released its 30th recording, an album by the Ficino Ensemble featuring works by Brahms, Ravel and Sholdice.

Published on 8 May 2019

Toner Quinn is editor of the Journal of Music.

Against Resignation: An Interview with Raymond Deane

Against Resignation: An Interview with Raymond Deane

Against Resignation: An Interview with Raymond Deane

Is there a lack of solidarity among composers? Will classical music ever become a part of Ireland's national consciousness? And have young Irish composers unwittingly subscribed to a code of musical prohibitions influenced by the US?

Published on 3 October 2018

Adrian Smith is Lecturer in Musicology at TU Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama.

A Visibility Mission: The RTÉ Lyric FM Record Label

A Visibility Mission: The RTÉ Lyric FM Record Label

A Visibility Mission: The RTÉ Lyric FM Record Label

The RTÉ Lyric FM label, established over a decade ago, has now released over forty recordings. Garrett Sholdice listens to the latest six – and considers the 'visibility mission' for Irish music that the label is engaged in.

Published on 21 July 2015

Garrett Sholdice is a composer and a director of the record label and music production company Ergodos.

Repeat with Caution

Repeat with Caution

Repeat with Caution

After the rejection of repetition by many modernist composers in the mid twentieth century, the extreme repetition of minimalism seemed inevitable. But, writes John McLachlan, composers don't always know when to stop.

Published on 30 November 2011

John McLachlan is a composer and member of Aosdána. www.johnmclachlan.org

Free of Baggage

Free of Baggage

Free of Baggage

Who is Kevin Volans? George Rafael goes looking for an answer after hearing the composer's latest piano concerto at the BBC Proms.

Published on 30 August 2011

George Rafael is a writer on film and music based in London. He has contributed to Cineaste, The First Post, Opera News, Film Comment and Salon.

Wild Air: The Music of Kevin Volans

Wild Air: The Music of Kevin Volans

Wild Air: The Music of Kevin Volans

Originally from South Africa, Kevin Volans was a student of Stockhausen, a close friend of Morton Feldman, and a recording by the Kronos Quartet of his work White Man Sleeps, on Pieces of Africa, spent twenty-six weeks at the top of the cla

Published on 1 November 2006

Bob Gilmore (1961–2015) was a musicologist, educator and keyboard player. Born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, he studied at York University, Queen's University Belfast, and at the University of California. His books include Harry Partch: a biography (Yale University Press, 1998) and Ben Johnston: Maximum Clarity and other writings on music (University of Illinois Press, 2006), both of which were recipients of the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP. He wrote extensively on the American experimental tradition, microtonal music and spectral music, including the work of such figures as James Tenney, Horațiu Rădulescu, Claude Vivier, and Frank Denyer. Bob Gilmore taught at Queens University, Belfast, Dartington College of Arts, Brunel University in London, and was a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent. He was the founder, director and keyboard player of Trio Scordatura, an Amsterdam-based ensemble dedicated to the performance of microtonal music, and for the year 2014 was the Editor of Tempo, a quarterly journal of new music. His biography of French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was published by University of Rochester Press in June 2014. Between 2005 and 2012, Bob Gilmore published several articles in The Journal of Music.

Live Reviews: Horizons – Kevin Volans

Live Reviews: Horizons – Kevin Volans

NCH, Dublin, 31 January 2006 / Andrew Hamilton – Map; Volans – Cello Concerto; Stravinsky – Four Études for Orchestra; Volans – Strip-weave / RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra / Gavriel Lipkind, cello; Robert Houlihan, conductor

Published on 1 March 2006

Barra Ó Séaghdha is a writer on cultural politics, literature and music.

It's Just Town!

It's Just Town!

It's Just Town!

A review of a recent edition of Horizons on Lyric FM, in which John Schaeffer of WYNC Radio in New York was asked to take an outsider's look at the new music scene in Ireland.

Published on 1 May 2002

Raymond Deane is a composer, pianist, author and activist. Together with the violinist Nigel Kennedy, he is a cultural ambassador of Music Harvest, an organisation seeking to create 'a platform for cultural events and dialogue between internationals and Palestinians...'.

About the 2" and No. 3

About the 2" and No. 3

About the 2" and No. 3

A review of Contemporary Music from Ireland Volume Three from the Contemporary Music Centre.

Published on 1 July 2001

Fergus Johnston is a Dublin-based composer. His CD Ard Fhearta has just been released and is available in Tower Records, the National Concert Hall shop, and the Contemporary Music Centre.