Saturday 5^th May

Stack Theatre, CIT Cork School of Music

10am - 12.30pm

Admission free, all welcome

The Cork International Choral Festival has a long-standing commitment to foster awareness and appreciation of new choral music.  With this in mind a seminar was initiated in 1962 as part of the festival programme by the late Aloys Fleischmann, Professor of Music at University College Cork, as being central to this purpose.  The Festival presents the 44th edition of the Seminar on New Choral Music as a joint collaboration with The National Chamber Choir of Ireland, our Choir in Residence.

The Seminar on New Choral Music maintains its initial purpose of commissioning new works to provide a platform for, and to encourage the composition and performance of, new choral music in Ireland.  In the last few years the Seminar has specifically promoted the commission of new works by Irish composers to develop a wider knowledge and understanding of Irish compositional life.  It is of central importance to the festival and the NCC that this seminar is accessible to all and assists in making current practice in the performance of new choral music accessible to the wider choral sector in Ireland.  It does so with a view to supporting the inclusion of these commissions and other new music as a part of the regular repertoire of Irish choirs.

This year brings two new works to Cork; Long Time by commissioned composer Gerald Barry and Two Unholy Haikus by the winner of this year’s Seán Ó Riada Competition, Frank Corcoran. The Seán Ó Riada Competition was initiated in 1972 in recognition of the creative life and work of Seán Ó Riada. It is a composition competition which invites the submission of new works from Irish composers in a collaboration between the Cork International Choral Festival and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland.  This year the competition captured the imagination of 33 Irish composers and has excited us by the range and quality of entries. We are delighted to welcome both composers to Cork to take part in the Seminar.

Without the financial support of the Arts Council in making the commission of Gerald Barry possible, and of the Ó Riada Family for its generous support of the Seán Ó Riada Competition, this seminar would not be in a position to continue to fulfil its important role in promoting the work of Irish composers and encouraging the composition of new choral music.

John Fitzpatrick

Artistic and Festival Director

For more information on attending the Seminar on New Choral Music, please contact the Cork International Choral Festival office at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  or on 021 4215125.

Presented in association with the C.I.T Cork School of Music.

Rhona Clarke

Seminar Chairperson

Rhona Clarke was born in Dublin. She studied music at University College, Dublin, completed a Ph.D at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her output includes choral, chamber, orchestral and electronic works.

She has received commissions from RTÉ, the Cork International Choral Festival, Concorde, Music Network and the National Concert Hall, among others. Her work has been performed and broadcast throughout Ireland and worldwide.

Latest works include con coro for violin, cello and tape commissioned and performed by Concorde in 2011 as part of their Up Close With Music series and also to be performed in Chicago by the Palomar Ensemble. Relic (2011) is collaboration with visual artist Marie Hanlon; this is a non–narrative film with music, based on the landscape of the Burren area in the west of Ireland. This year she has been commissioned by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra to write a new orchestral work and by the Society of Recorder Players for a piece for massed players to be performed as part of their 2013 Festival. Rhona is a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists.

Gerald Barry

Commissioned Composer 2012

Gerald Barry was born in 1952 and studied with Stockhausen and Kagel. He has written five operas, The Intelligence Park for the London Almeida Festival (performed in London and Dublin – BBC recording on the NMC label), The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit for Channel 4 Television (performed in Aldeburgh, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, Los Angeles, New York - recorded on the Largo label), The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant for ENO/RTÉ (performed in Dublin, London, Basel) - recorded on the RTÉ label), La Plus Forte (The Stronger) for Radio France (performed in Paris, Amsterdam, London, Dublin, Toronto, Miami) and The Importance of Being Earnest for The Los Angeles Philharmonic/Barbican London, performed in Los Angeles and London.

2013 will see new stagings of The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, The Importance of Being Earnest at Opera de Nancy, a new piano concerto for Musica Viva Munich, and his music will be featured at the Dark Music Days in Reykjavik.

Frank Corcoran

Seán Ó Riada Composition Competition Winner 2012

Frank Corcoran was born in Tipperary and studied in Dublin, Maynooth, Rome and Berlin (with Boris Blacher), and was the first Irish composer to have his ‘Symphony No. 1’ (1980) premiered in Vienna.

After a period as music inspector for the Department of Education in Ireland from 1971 to 1979, Frank was awarded a composer fellowship by the Berlin Künstlerprogramm in 1980, and a guest professorship in West Berlin in 1981. Since 1983 he has been professor of composition and theory in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Hamburg. During 1989-90 he was visiting professor and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a guest lecturer at many other notable American universities. 

Awards include Studio Akustische Kunst First Prize 1996 for his ‘Joycepeak Music’ (1995), Premier Prix at the 1999 Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition for his composition ‘Sweeney’s Vision’ (1997) and, more recently, the 2002 Swedish EMS Prize for ‘Quasi Una Missa’ (1999). CDs of his music have been released on the Black Box, Marco Polo, Col-Legno, Wergo, Wergo, Composers’ Art, IMEB-Unesco, Zeitklang and Caprice labels. Frank Corcoran is a founding member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists

2011

Viñao,·Ezequiel