2010 sees the welcome return of the Seminar on New Choral Music to the Cork International Choral Festival.

To Music

Friday 30th April 2010
7.30pm, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork

From Composition to Performance:

Seminar Chairperson: Rhona Clarke

Entry is free of charge and all are welcome

Saturday 1^st May 2010

10am

Stack Theatre

CIT Cork School of Music

Union Quay, Cork

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·Seminar Chairperson Rhona Clarke was born in Dublin. She studied music at University College, Dublin, pursued composition studies with John Buckley and James Wilson, and completed a Ph.D at Queen’s University, Belfast under the supervision of Michael Alcorn. Her output includes choral, chamber, orchestral and electronic works. She has received commissions from RTÉ, the Cork International Choral Festival, Music Network and the National Concert Hall, among others. Her work has been performed and broadcast throughout Ireland and at several European music festivals, including Donne in Musica, Italy, Begegnungen, Austria, and Neue Musik Winterthur, Switzerland.

Recent works include Pas De Quatre for string quartet which was commissioned by The Contemporary Music Centre as part of their New Notes project and performed by the ConTempo Quartet with a visual projection by artist Marie Hanlon. Current projects include a fifteen minute work for narrator, choir, two percussion, piano and double bass which will be performed by The University Of Minnesota choirs in October, conducted by Marion Doherty Hayden, and an a capella choral piece for Sydney Philharmonia Symphony Chorus to be performed in London in July 2010.

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Rhona Clarke is a lecturer in music at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, and a guest lecturer at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. In 2005 she was elected to Aosdána,Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists.

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The words of the homeless hammer were inspired by the poet hearing Boulez’s “Le Marteau san Maître” (“The Hammer without a Master”). Wendy has drawn on their highly esoteric nature and so I’ve echoed this hazy elusiveness in the music. Musically, there is a hint of serialism in I furious objects but I find the text rather sad and beautiful in II second sight in Brockwell Park. When I read III solitary beer-mat it immediately conjured the jollity of the music hall, so my music for this verse is an affectionate tribute to this genre.

RP 12^th February, 2010

ROXANNA PANUFNIK b.1968 ARAM, GRSM(hons), LRAM studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and, since then, has written a wide range of pieces – opera, ballet, music theatre, choral works, chamber compositions, and music for film and television – which have been performed all over the world. Highlights of her works include “Westminster Mass”, commissioned for Westminster Cathedral Choir on the occasion of Cardinal Hume's 75th birthday; “The Music Programme”, an opera for Polish National Opera's millennium season which received its UK premiere at the BOC Covent Garden Festival; and settings for solo voices and orchestra of Vikram Seth's “Beastly Tales” - the first of which was commissioned by the BBC for Patricia Rozario and City of London Sinfonia. All three Tales are available on disc.

She is currently writing a new Four Seasons for violinist Tasmin Little. Other premieres later this year include a Shakespeare song cycle “The Generation of Love” with tenor Mark Padmore, Richard Watkins (horn) and pianist Julius Drake. Her third mass setting “Schola Missa de Angelis” for choir and brass octet is also in rehearsal, for its premiere in May.

Roxanna's compositions are published by Peter’s Edition Ltd and have been recorded by many companies including Warner Classics and EMI Classics.

Further information can be found on www.roxannapanufnik.com .

Roxanna Panufnik’s work was commissioned for the Seminar on New Choral Music 2010 by the Cork International Choral Festival and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland with funds made available by An Comhairle Ealaoin (The Arts Council).

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- Séamas de Barra