Date: Sun January 30th 2011
Doors: 8.00pm
Venue: Bewley's Cafe Theatre, Grafton St. Dublin
Admission: €12
'Cracking good songs in the style of Brecht, Bowie & Brel' Tony Clayton-Lea (Irish Times) describes the work of Dublin singer-songwriter: Jody Trehy. On Sun, January 30th 2011, he will be performing a selection of new and old songs in the cosy, candle-lit surroundings of Bewley's Cafe Theatre, Grafton St. Dublin.
His show in Bewley's will be a chance to hear him singing the best of his uniquely lyrical songs accompanied by new arrangements for piano performed by the expert ticklers of Cockney jazzer: Paul Higgs, Paul “Burnin’ Rubber” Byrne on drums and Japanese groover: Yoshi Sushiman on bass.
Sinead McNally is a singer/songwriter and pianist from Dundalk. She spent her early years studying piano at the College of Music in Dublin and alongside that developed her love for Irish traditional music by learning the fiddle through Comhaltas. When she was 14 she won ‘The Macardle Award’ after being auditioned by renowned Irish conductor Proinnsias O’Duinn on behalf of Louth County Council. She was awarded a scholarship to pursue her classical music studies. She went on to study a degree in music at Canterbury Christchurch University. Following that she trained as a primary school teacher. In 2004, a song she submitted to RTE for the Eurovision Song Competition came runner up in the ‘You’re A Star’ TV programme, just narrowly missing out on representing Ireland in the Eurovision that year.
She has also been a finalist in the Glinsk Song Contest and the Kerry Ballad competition in the last two years and received very positive feedback from high profile judges in both competitions.
Sinead’s burning ambition to be a full-time singer/songwriter got the better of her and last September she decided to take time out of teaching to fully immerse herself in gigging, writing and learning whatever it takes to have her music out in the public domain. Sinead thrives on interaction with her audience and on the sharing of experiences and thoughts through the words and her music. She recently supported Eleanor McEvoy who was promoting her new album. Prior to this she supported up and coming Edenderry based band ‘Frantic Jack’ in Whelans among many other bands and artists since leaving full time work in September. In December last she supported the fantastic Monaghan singer/songwriter Ryan Sheridan on the first night of his tour. Sinead has a packed diary of gigs, both support and as headline act over the coming months and her first single is being prepared for release in February. Sinead’s very impressive piano skills mixed with her wide range of musical styles and songs that move and delight make up a very enjoyable entertainer.
SECRET FESTIVAL 2010-2012 MUSIC EXPERIMENT ON THE ISLAND OF ÖLAND SWEDEN
The Secret Festival in Sweden are seeking songwriters from five different countries to travel to the Island of Öland to participate in a unique festival concept. The residency is for a week with flights, accommodation and a 500 euro fee taken care of by the Festival organisers. Two songwriters from Ireland are now being sought to take part from the 25th of June to the 2rd of July 2011. It is an open submission for original songwriters and musicians in the genres of trad, Singer/songwriter or instrumentalist.
IMRO members interested in participating can email their info and website details directly to hemligfestival@nullgmail.com with a short note on why they would like to be part of Secret Festival. Further information on the project is located at: www.hemligfestival.se
Yellowbox in Sättra becomes a place where songwriters come together for four days to work together to find new musical arrangements. Participating songwriters are introduced to the specific surroundings in order to be partly inspired by the place and also be informed about its unique qualities. Songwriters from the region meet songwriters from different nationalities and backgrounds. The group lives and works together over the four days.
MAKO signals the re-emergence of Declan O’Shea and Christian Montagne, both former members of acclaimed band Cyclefly, onto the music scene. During their time with the alternative rock band Cyclefly, Declan (vox) and Christian (bass guitar) toured throughout America and Europe with bands such as Linkin Park, Iggy Pop, Live, and Bush. The band also garnered places on the ‘Best New Artist’ lists of NME, Rock Sound, and Kerrang!. For the past two years Declan, a singer-songwriter from East Cork, and Christian, a songwriter-guitarist from Antibes, have concentrated all their energies on MAKO.
While their new project retains the slightly edgy alt-rock sound that gathered so many fans for Cyclefly, it also possesses a more mellow maturity reflecting Declan and Christian’s growth as songwriters and musicians. Declan’s voice, which has been compared to people such as Bowie, Richard Butler (Psychedelic furs), and Annie Lennox, permeates MAKO’S unforgettable lyrics in a charismatic and evocative manner. For the recording of their debut album, the band returned to Christian’s native Antibes on the Côte D’Azur. Mako flawlessly encapsulates the musical development of the two artists who have combined Raw talent with past experience .
The album “Living On Air” is out now. And The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences placed Mako on the Official Ballot for the 2011 Grammy Awards in the following categories:
West Cork Chamber Music Festival
in partnership with Contemporary Music Centre and supported by Irish Music Rights Organisation
Composition Competition for Young Irish Composers 2011
West Cork Music invites Irish composers under 30 years of age on 1st January 2011 to submit works for string quartet (violin, violin, viola, cello) or piano trio (violin, cello, piano) of between 5-8 minutes duration for workshopping and performance at the 2011 West Cork Chamber Music Festival.
Three works will be selected. The composer of each selected work will receive a prize of €800 and will be asked to attend a workshop at the Festival on Sunday 26th June 2011 where the piece will be played through by a group on the Festival’s masterclass programme. This will be followed by an informal public workshop between composer and performers led by Festival Composer-in-Residence, Brett Dean. The premieres will take place during the Festival in the Town Concert series on 29 and 30 June and 1 July
Rules/ conditions:
1. Entrants must be of Irish nationality, born in Northern Ireland or resident on the island of Ireland
2. Entrants must be under the age of 30 on 1st January 2011
3. Entrants may submit only one work
4. Entrants should state date of birth and give full contact details including postal address.
5. Prize-winners and entrants from previous competitions run by West Cork Music are welcome to submit new scores.
6. Works must be between 5 and 8 minutes in length and may not involve any form of electronics or pre-recorded sounds
7. Works may not have been performed in concert before a ticket-buying public audience prior to the Festival.
8. Scores must be received by 31 March 2011. Scores can be submitted electronically. It is recommended but not compulsory for a midi realisation or other audio mock-up to be submitted with scores.
9. Compositions will be assessed by an adjudicator chosen by West Cork Music
10. Works will be assessed anonymously, please do not mark or sign scores or CDs.
11. Selected compositions will be announced on www.westcorkmusic.ie by 15th April 2011. Selected composers will be notified by email.
12. Winning entrants must submit instrumental parts by 1st May 2011. CMC operate a grant scheme to assist with copying costs. See www.cmc.ie. All copying costs are the responsibility of entrants.
13. There will be three selected compositions. The composer of each selected composition will be awarded a prize of €800.
14. West Cork Music reserves the right not to award prizes.
15. It is a condition of entry that composers agree to attend the workshop in Bantry on Sunday 26th June 2011 at 14.00. Prizes will be withheld in the event of non-attendance. All expenses incurred in attendance are the responsibility of the winning composers.
16. West Cork Music reserves the right to alter dates and times of the workshop and subsequent performances.
Address for submission:
Contemporary Music Centre
19 Fishamble St
Temple Bar
Dublin 8
The Contemporary Music Centre collaborates with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra to present Composers in Conversation in RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Horizons 2011.
The Contemporary Music Centre, in association with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, presents a new format pre-concert talk entitled Composers in Conversation as part of the RTÉ NSO's lunchtime Horizons Contemporary Music Series 2011. All concerts are free of charge.
Composers in Conversation features each of the five composers of the Horizons Contemporary Music Series in conversation with Evonne Ferguson, Director, The Contemporary Music Centre.
Kevin O’Connell (11 January), David Fennessy (18 January), Piers Hellawell (22 February); Philip Hammond (10 May) and Jerome de Bromhead (17 May) are the five featured composers. Each Composer in Conversation event will take place at 12.30pm in the John Field Room, prior to each concert starting at 1.05pm in the main auditorium.
“The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Horizons Contemporary Music Series has always been a very welcome start to the New Year for me and I am delighted this year to have the opportunity to converse with the five featured composers on their exciting programmes and work” says Evonne Ferguson, Director, The Contemporary Music Centre.
A total of 15 works by seven different composers will be performed over the five concerts taking place between January and May. Two world premieres, by Kevin O’Connell and Jerome de Bromhead, feature as well as a 60th birthday tribute to Philip Hammond. Conductors include Gavin Maloney, Fergus Sheil, Garry Walker and Colman Pearce. Admission is free to all Composers in Conversation events and all concerts.
Born in Derry, now based in Dublin, composer Kevin O’Connell is a member of Aosdána, the Irish affiliation of creative artists and teaches composition in the Royal Academy of Music. The prestigious Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award was recently awarded to David Fennessy, who born in Kildare is now based in Glasgow. Professor of Composition at Queen’s University, Piers Hellawell was recently awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship in 2010. Philip Hammond, born and living in Belfast, retired from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 2009 and is now active as a writer as well as a composer. Jerome de Bromhead, born and living in Waterford, a member of Aosdána, has had all but one of his orchestral works premiered by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.
For detailed biographies and further details on all composers please visit www.cmc.ie
The Contemporary Music Centre is Ireland’s national archive and resource centre for new music supporting and developing the work of composers throughout the Republic and Northern Ireland. It is used on a national and international basis by performers, composers, promoters and members of the public interested in finding out more about music in Ireland.
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Horizons Contemporary Music Series 2011 Concert and programme details
12.30pm: Composers in Conversation with Evonne Ferguson, Director, Contemporary Music Centre.
1.05 – 2pm: Concerts
Tuesday 11 January – Featured composer: Kevin O’Connell
Symphony (world première)
Gavin Maloney conductor
Tuesday 18 January – Featured composer: David Fennessy
BODIES
David Fennessy
…as others see us… James MacMillan
Fergus Sheil conductor
Tuesday 22 February – Featured composer: Piers Hellawell
Degrees of Separation for orchestra
Memorial Cairns
Degrees of Separation for string ensemble
Agricolas
Robert Plane clarinet Garry Walker conductor
Tuesday 10 May – Featured composer: Philip Hammond
Waterfront Fanfares
Die ersten Blumen
Concertino for Flute and Strings
‘…while the sun shines’ (in memoriam H.H.H.)
‘…the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…’
Roy Holmes piano Gavin Maloney conductor
Tuesday 17 May – Featured composer: Jerome de Bromhead
Venti Eventi
Jerome de Bromhead
Campane in Aria John Buckley
Violin Concerto (world première) Jerome de Bromhead
Alan Smale violin Colman Pearce conductor
Tickets and booking: Admission free to all events. Events are ticketed. Tickets available through the NCH box office in advance. Booking: 01 417 0000.
For many years, Jackie Daly (accordion) and Matt Cranitch (fiddle) have been among the foremost interpreters of the rich Sliabh Luachra tradition of instrumental music. The unique cultural area on the borders of northwest Cork and east Kerry provides a special repertoire of tunes as well as a very distinctive style of playing, and has long been a source of inspiration for both Jackie and Matt. Through their respective performances over many years, they have established enviable individual reputations in the world of Irish traditional music. Together however, the vibrant music that they create displays an additional collaborative dimension.
Their new CD, The Living Stream, draws very much from the Sliabh Luachra tradition, and features fourteen tracks, mostly unaccompanied. However, on a number of selections, accompaniment is provided by Paul De Grae (guitar) and Bríd Cranitch (piano). This recording attests in a very comprehensive manner to the continuing relevance of the ‘living stream’ of traditional music in Ireland today. In the booklet accompanying the album, Jackie Small of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, states the following:
On this CD, two of the most prestigious performers of Irish traditional music, Matt Cranitch and Jackie Daly, join together to celebrate their common musical heritage – the Sliabh Luachra tradition. Each in his own right has had a long and distinguished career in Irish music; each has left a lasting influence on that tradition.”
We hear sparkling dance tunes in all the favourite rhythms of Sliabh Luachra – polkas, jigs, slides, hornpipes and reels. An integral part of the Sliabh Luachra tradition was a wonderfully rich culture of playing slow airs, and both the musicians on this CD are acknowledged masters of the slow air. This CD contains a superb example of slow-air playing from each of them.
Jackie Daly (accordion)
The words ‘Button Accordion’ and ‘Jackie Daly’ are synonymous in the world of Irish traditional music. Described in the New York Times as “probably the best accordionist in Ireland”, Jackie was born in Kanturk, Co. Cork, where he grew up surrounded by the rich music tradition of Sliabh Luachra. One of the greatest influences on his early musical development was Ballydesmond fiddle-player, Jim Keeffe, a pupil of the renowned Sliabh Luachra fiddle-master, Pádraig O’Keeffe. Over the years, Jackie’s lifelong affinity with fiddle-music has resulted in highly-acclaimed albums featuring fiddle and accordion – with the late Cork-based musician Séamus Creagh, with Kevin Burke, and now with Matt Cranitch. Jackie was a central figure in some of the most dominant groups playing Irish music in recent times. His performances with bands such as De Danann, Patrick Street, Buttons and Bows, Arcady, Reel Union and Kinvara all attest to his wonderful music and versatility. However, it is the style and repertoire of the Sliabh Luachra tradition that has made the most significant impression on his accordion-playing, a fact well exemplified through his performances and recordings. He has toured extensively and has also taught. In 2005, he received the TG4 Gradam Ceoil (National Music Award), and, in 2009, the Kanturk Arts Festival Award.
Matt Cranitch (fiddle)
Matt Cranitch is renowned as a fiddle-player and teacher, both at home in Ireland and abroad. He has performed extensively at concerts and festivals, as well as on radio and television, and has presented lectures, master-classes and workshops on various aspects of Irish music. He has won All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil titles, as well as The Fiddler of Dooney and Oireachtas Crotty Cup. Author of The Irish Fiddle Book, first published in 1988 and now in its fourth edition, he has also contributed to other books on Irish traditional music. Currently, he plays with Sliabh Notes, with whom he has recorded three highly-praised albums. Among his other recordings is Éistigh Seal which consists entirely of slow airs. An authority on the Sliabh Luachra fiddle-style, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Limerick in 2006 for his study entitled ‘Pádraig O’Keeffe and The Sliabh Luachra Fiddle Tradition’. A long-time consultant for the Geantraí series on TG4, he is also an advisor to the Arts Council Deis scheme for the traditional arts, and has served on the board of the Irish Traditional Music Archive (2007–2010). In 2003, he received the ‘University College Cork Hall of Fame Award’ in recognition of his contribution to Irish traditional music.
As part of the exciting programme of events taking place at the 2011 TradFest Festival, IMRO in association with Templebar Traders, will present a series of Master Classes in the New Theatre, Temple Bar, on Saturday 29th January.
Master Class with Brendan Power
DATE: Saturday 29th January from 11.00am − 1.00pm
Master Class with Tim Edey
DATE: Saturday 29th January from 2.00pm − 4.00pm
These master classes are FREE but due to limited capacity – booking is essential. Email: keith.johnson@nullimro.ie to reserve your seat now. (please indicate which seminar(s) you would like to attend)
BIOGS
BRENDAN POWER
UK-based New Zealander Brendan Power is acknowledged by many as one of the most creative, skilled & versatile harmonica players around today. Equally at ease on both the earthy Blues Harp as well as the sophisticated Chromatic Harmonica, he tunes them to his own scales to create a highly original style. He has recorded fifteen solo CDs to date, in a wide variety of musical genres.
Since he moved to Britain in 1992, Brendan’s eclectic skills and sympathetic ear have made him an in-demand session player, leading to live and recording work with artists such as Sting, Van Morrison, Kate Bush, James Galway, Paul Young, Shirley Bassey, John Williams, Mike Batt and many more. His playing is also heard on many Hollywood movie soundtracks (eg. the 2008 Oscar winning soundtrack for 'Atonement'), and BBC TV series. He’s featured on the internationally-syndicated Jools Holland Show and toured worldwide, performing in venues such as China’s Great Hall of the People and The Kremlin.
In addition to his Pop, Jazz & Blues skills, Brendan is an expert player of Irish traditional music (winning the 1993 All Ireland Title), and performed for three years as soloist in the Riverdance Show. He has recorded with well-known Irish songwriters and artists such as Donal Lunny, Altan, Paul Brady, Arkady, Artie McGlynn, Mary Black and others. A respected harmonica technician & customiser, Brendan is employed by Suzuki Musical Instruments Co. of Japan as their International Harmonica Specialist.
TIM EDEY
Tim Edey is one of the finest multi-instrumental players of his generation in the worldwide Celtic music scene. A virtuoso on both acoustic guitar and button accordion, Tim's incredible musical ear and total technical command allow him to play the most demanding instrumentals and improvise freely in any style you throw at him. His great gifts have been recognised by the top names in the Celtic music scene, and led to touring/recording with Sharon Shannon, Lunasa, Michael McGoldrick, Seamus Begley, Mary Black, Altan and Capercaillie – to name a few. Tim has released four solo albums and had his compositions recorded by Sharon Shannon and other respected Celtic artists.
