News: April 2008 From Composition to Performance The Seminar on New Choral Music presented by Cork International Choral Festival and The National Chamber Choir of Ireland in association with CIT Cork School of Music - Saturday, May 3rd 2008. 2008 sees the welcome return of the Seminar on Contemporary Choral Music to the Cork International Choral Festival.

The Cork International Choral Festival has a long-standing commitment to foster awareness and appreciation of new choral music. In this, its 40th year, the Seminar resumes its role as a central part of the festival but does so for the first time as a new joint collaboration with The National Chamber Choir of Ireland and with an expanded focus and direction. This marks the beginning of an exciting new time for the Seminar, and presents once again a much-needed platform for the examination of new music, and the opportunity to foster this approach together with the choral community. Reviving the Seminar reinforces the commitment of Cork International Choral Festival and the National Chamber Choir to encourage the development, performance and commission of new choral music in Ireland. I particularly welcome Séamas de Barra, and Patrick Zuk as Co-Directors of the Seminar, and thank Eibhlín Gleeson, Chief Executive, for her commitment to involve the National Chamber Choir of Ireland in this project.

It is of central importance to the festival and the NCC that the revitalised seminar is more accessible to all and assists in making current performance practices in the performance of new choral music accessible to the wider choral sector in Ireland 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 accessibility is further supported by moving the seminar’s venue to the centrally situated and recently re-opened CIT Cork School of Music, as well as changing the day to the Saturday, a time when many more choirs are present in Cork.

The Seminar on New Choral Music maintains its central purpose as a commissioner of new works by leading Irish and international composers. These works will be analysed, performed, and discussed in the presence of the commissioned composers, conductors, singers, musicologists, students, and the general public with a view to understanding the integrity of the piece and the intentions of the composer. The commissions receive their premiere performances at the festival, with this year bringing two new two works to Cork by composers Rhona Clarke (Ireland) and Tarik O’Regan (England). We are delighted to welcome them both to Cork to take part in the Seminar.
- John Fitzpatrick

Festival Director

Both new commissions will receive their world premieres in performance by The National Chamber Choir of Ireland in their concert:

A Time for Everything: The modern world facing the greatest of madrigalists

Friday 4th May 2008
7.30pm, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork

From Composition to Performance

The Seminar on New Choral Music will put new choral music to the fore and offer the choral sector the opportunity to learn and exchange experience and ideas about performing new work with Ireland’s foremost professional choir, the National Chamber Choir.

The examination and exploration of the two new commissioned pieces by Rhona Clarke and Tarik O’Regan will be central to the day. The Seminar will use this as a spring board to cover performance, analysis, presentation, response from composers and conductors, and will be followed by open discussion. Analysis will cover areas including structure, harmonic language, textures and timbres from the composer’s viewpoint. The performer’s viewpoint will take into account the difficulties in performing modern repertoire including approaching complex tonalities, difficulties in voice leading and understanding notation of extended vocal technique.

Seminar Director: Séamas de Barra
Seminar Co-Director: Patrick Zuk

Entry is free of charge and all are welcome.

Session 1 (Rhona Clarke) 10:30am – 12:00pm
Session 2 (Tarik O’Regan 2:30pm – 4:00pm

Saturday 3^rd May 2008

Stack Theatre
CIT Cork School of Music
Union Quay, Cork

Composers

Rhona Clarke 'To express the sensual and spiritual in the simplest, clearest way is what I try, and hope, to achieve.' 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.

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

Tarik O’Regan Born in London in 1978, British Composer Award winner Tarik O'Regan was educated at Oxford University and completed his postgraduate studies at Cambridge, where he was subsequently appointed Composer in Residence at Corpus Christi College. Described as beautifully-imagined (FINANCIAL TIMES, London), his compositions have been performed internationally by, among others, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, BBC Singers and Los Angeles Master Chorale.

O’Regan divides his time between Trinity College, Cambridge, where he is Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts, and New York City, where he has held the Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship in Music Composition at Columbia University and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard.

He is currently working on an operatic version of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, in collaboration with the artist Tom Phillips, which is in development with American Opera Projects in New York and OperaGenesis at the Royal Opera House, London.

 

National Chamber Choir of Ireland
Artistic Director: Paul Hillier

The National Chamber Choir of Ireland is widely regarded as Ireland’s most distinguished choir. It is celebrated both in Ireland and internationally for its fresh and innovative sound. Founded in 1991 by composer and conductor, Colin Mawby and developed under the direction of Brazilian conductor Celso Antunes until early 2007, the National Chamber Choir of Ireland is the country’s only professional vocal ensemble.

In 2008 the internationally celebrated conductor Paul Hillier joins the National Chamber Choir of Ireland as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor.

 

The National Chamber Choir is made up of extraordinary vocalists drawn from the ranks of Europe’s leading choral singers. Each vocalist has a different and wide-ranging background in solo, opera and choral performance, which enhances the choir’s ability to undertake some of the most diverse and challenging choral work and contributes to the warm and special sound that is unique to this Irish ensemble. Through collaboration with some of the world’s leading choral conductors together with its dedication to performing the finest vocal music old and new, the National Chamber Choir of Ireland remains at the pinnacle of vocal performance in Ireland and beyond. The National Chamber Choir of Ireland’s repertoire extends from early to contemporary music, regularly commissioning new pioneering vocal work from Irish and international composers.

Conductor: Bo Holten (b. 1948)

Composer and conductor of 6 operas, 5 concertos, 2 symphonies, various orchestral works and chamber music, film scores and ca 35 a cappella works. In total ca 100 works. Founded Ars Nova 1979 and directed that group up to 1996. Founded Musica Ficta in 1996 and is still directing that group. Principal Guest Conductor for the BBC Singers 1990-2006. Chief Conductor for The Flemish Radio Choir from 2007. Frequent guest conducter with all 8 Danish Symphony Orchestras, the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Swedish Radio Choir and many other groups. Has recorded 57 CDs. Conducted about 190 world premieres. More than 1200 concerts, opera- and music theatre performances.

Seminar History and Background
In 1962, eight years after the Cork International Choral Festival was established, Aloys Fleischmann, Director of the Festival, initiated the Seminar on Contemporary Choral Music. Although its success in promoting the development of choral singing in Ireland was already generally acknowledged by this time, Fleischmann decided it was now appropriate to extend the scope of the Festival by encouraging also the development of modern choral composition. Accordingly he established a scheme whereby a number of contemporary composers would be commissioned each year to write new works, which would be premiered in the Festival programme.

 

Fleischmann was aware, however, that the reception of new music can often be problematical: in his experience, many listeners tended to find the idioms of contemporary music merely puzzling, and reaction was not infrequently one of incomprehension - a situation that was more acute in the 1960s, perhaps, than it is today. It was in order to provide a context, therefore, for the reception of the newly commissioned pieces, that he established the Seminar on Contemporary Choral Music, structured to allow for the presentation of analyses of the new works, informal performances before the official premiers in the City Hall, and contributions from the composers and the conductors and members of the participating choirs.

Following Fleischmann’s retirement in 1987 as Director of the Festival, the format of the Seminar changed, and after undergoing a number of further transformations, it was temporarily suspended in 2004. This year, a revitalized version of the Seminar of Contemporary Choral Music is to be reintroduced into the Festival’s calendar of events.
- Séamas de Barra, Seminar Director