Press Release – Wood Hair & Gut
29 May 2008, 8pm | The Chapel, Trinity College, Dublin | €10/6
Wood, Hair & Gut
Ioana Petcu-Colan, violin
David Coonan – Breath (for violin and guitar)*
David Flynn – Tar Éis an Caoineadh
Louise Harte – Swimming Out of Depth
Scott McLaughlin – Intra (for violin and prepared guitar)*
Benedict Schlepper-Connolly – Ekstase I
Garrett Sholdice – darkly he rose, and then I slept
* with David Flynn (guitar)
‘Wood, Hair and Gut’ is a concert showcasing six brand new pieces for violin by Irish Young Composers Collective members David Coonan, David Flynn, Louise Harte, Scott McLaughlin, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Garrett Sholdice, performed by rising star Ioana Petcu-Colan. The concert promises six fresh and diverse approaches to composing for violin, an instrument that has been a mainstay in music from this part of the world for centuries.
Ioana Petcu-Colan is one of Ireland’s finest violinists. A prolific soloist and former 1st violin and founder member of the Callino Quartet, Petcu-Colan is also currently a member of Ensemble Avalon and of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. She particularly enjoys the challenges of new and unusual projects in addition to the existing contemporary repertoire and is dedicated to raising public awareness of living composers and their work.
David Flynn’s ‘Tar Eís an Caoineadh’ (meaning ‘After the Keening’) is a reflection on the more celebratory part of the Irish wake. Fittingly, several of the pieces’ sections are inspired by the playing styles of certain traditional Irish fiddle players. Echoes of traditional Irish fiddle music can also be heard in the opening of Benedict Schlepper-Connolly’s ‘Ekstase I’, a piece which, as it’s title suggests, seeks to bring listener and performer outside of themselves, to that place of ecstasis.
David Flynn will also feature as guitarist in David Coonan’s ‘Breath’ (for violin and guitar) and Scott McLaughlin’s ‘Intra’ (for violin and prepared guitar). While McLaughlin aims to draw the violin sound inside the alien world of the prepared guitar, Coonan aims for simplicity of expression such as is present in florid Gregorian chant.
A meditative stillness is the goal in Garrett Sholdice’s ‘darkly he rose, and then I slept’, which centres around chords often heard in bluegrass fiddle playing. Louise Harte’s ‘Swimming Out of Depth’ is inspired by those situations where we achieve things we never would have imagined, despite feeling like we are going to drown under the pressure.
The Young Composers Collective (YCC) formed in 2003. Membership is open to any composer living in or linked to the island of Ireland. As an organisation it aims to provide professional performance opportunities for our membership as often as possible. This year the YCC received a Projects: Once-Off award from Irish Arts Council in order to mount concerts in major Irish cities featuring programmes of ensemble music performed by a dedicated five-piece chamber ensemble.
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For images, visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/22412586@N00/
For interviews/press enquiries, please phone 085 143 0591 or email info@ycc.ie
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info@ycc.ie
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Biographies
- Ioana Petcu-Colan
Ioana is an accomplished soloist and chamber musician with a widely varied performance schedule programming music from the baroque era to the present day. Although Ioana prefers not to specialise in any one field, she particularly enjoys the challenges of new and unusual projects in additionto the existing contemporary repertoire and is dedicated to raising public awareness of living composers and their work.
Performing contemporary music, Ioana has featured at such festivals as the West Cork Chamber Music, Crash Ensemble’s ‘Up North’, Sligo New Music, Masters of Tradition, Clandeboye, and Cheltenham Festivals and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Lyric FM and RTE national television. She has premiered works in Canada, Spain, the UK and Ireland and has worked closely with composers such as Arvo Part, Peteris Vasks, Edgar Meyer, Ian Wilson and Franghiz Ali-Zadeh on interpretations of their work.
Past projects have included recording ‘Elastic Harmonic’ by Donnacha Dennehy with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland for broadcast on Irish national television (commission and world premiere), giving the world premiere of ‘Renaissance Man’ featuring the composer, Ronan Guilfoyle, his brother Conor, renowned jazz guitarist John Abercrombie and her former ensemble the Callino Quartet, collaborating with internationally renowned traditional duo Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill for the world premiere of
‘Music for the Departed’ by David Flynn – specially commissioned for the 2006 Masters of Tradition Festival – and recording a selection of Ian Wilson’s string quartets on the Riverrun label with the Callino Quartet, of
which quartet no. 6, ‘In Fretta In Vento’, is a commission made on behalf of the group.
Most recently, Ioana has been invited to join a project developed by publishing house Universal Edition which aims to bring contemporary composers and young musicians together through accessible new works.
Educated in France, the UK and Ireland, Ioana holds the prestigious Medaille d’Or a l’Unanimite, a first-class Honours BMus Performance Degree and a first-class MA in Performance from each country respectively.
Ioana plays on an Italian violin, built by Gofreddo Cappa in 1695.
- David Coonan
David Coonan is young Irish composer currently reading music at Trinity College Dublin, where he is majoring in composition with Donnacha Dennehy. His introduction to new music came, at the early age of fourteen, as a student of the of the Irish Composition Summer School. At this summer school, David took classes with leading Irish and International composers including Martin O’ Leary, Kevin O’ Connell, Fergus Johnston, Nicola LeFanu, Thoma Simaku, Ian Wilson, Simon Bainbridge and Michael Finnissy.
His music has been played by David Adams, Collete McGahon, the Fidelio Trio, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, Karen Dervan and Brian Quigley (at the Northside Music Festival), and Chethams School of Music Wind Ensemble (at the World Association of Symphonic Brass Ensembles (WASBE) Conference in Killarney). Future projects include a piece for one of Ireland’s leading young musicians, classical guitarist Darragh O’ Neill, and an ensemble work for the Composers’ Weekend at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
David is actively involved in the promotion of new music, both as a member of the YCC and as President of the Dublin University Music Society (contributing to the Node new music concerts in the capacities of performer (organist, pianist and singer), composer and organiser. Next Year with the Node ensemble, David will oversee a concert in which new works by young composers will be performed alongside excerpts from John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano David also plays the bassoon.
- David Flynn
David Flynn is a composer and musician from Dublin, Ireland.
He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Young Composers Award and the IMRO Composition Award. His music has been performed by internationally acclaimed artists including Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, the Contempo and Smith Quartets,
Rolf Hind, Ioana Petcu-Colan and the Dublin Guitar Quartet of whom David was a founding member.
He has received commissions from organisations including RTÉ, Music for Galway, the Contemporary Music Centre, Temple Bar Cultural Trust and West Cork Music with performances at festivals including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Masters of Tradition Festival, the EBU
Folk Festival, the Mostly Modern Festival and the Guitar Festival of Ireland.
David has a Degree in Composition from the Dublin Institute of Technology and a Masters Degree from the Guildhall School of Music in London where he studied with Malcolm Singer. He is currently pursuing a Research Doctorate at the DIT.
David is active as a multi-genre performer and recently released ‘Draíocht’ his debut album in a traditional Irish style. His piece ‘Slip’ was recently released on the CMC CD ‘Contemporary Music from Ireland Vol.7
Upcoming projects include a Fiddle Concerto to be premiered by Martin Hayes and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and an Irish tour with Hugh Buckley, Liz Coleman and Martin Tourish in September 2008.
For more information on David please visit the following web-sites:
www.myspace.com/daveflynncomposer
www.cmc.ie/composers/composer.cfm?composerID=179
- Louise Harte
Louise is a composer living in Dublin. She has studied composition under Donnacha Dennehy in Trinity College Dublin. Currently she is finishing her Masters in Music and Media Technology working on a compositional thesis under the supervision of Linda Buckley.
- Scott McLaughlin
Scott Mc Laughlin is a composer based at the University of Huddersfield where he is currently working towards a PhD – Audible Processes and the Problems of Mapping – under the supervision of Bryn Harrison and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay.
Most of his work is concerned with ‘frequencial harmony’ and the proliferation/evolution of inharmonic spectra. Currently he is investigating ways of using cellular automata and similar techniques as proliferative
methods. He is also interested in works which use open forms or which can be infintely extended (while retaining their identity): ‘game’ pieces, text pieces and music written on principles/rules rather than brute force notation.
- Benedict Schlepper-Connolly
Benedict Schlepper-Connolly is a composer living in Dublin. He is Co-Director of music company Ergodos and is a member of the Young Composers’ Collective. He is Assistant Editor with the JMI: Journal of
Music in Ireland and performs with the Engine Room Orchestra and improvised music group, Forms. Benedict has studied with Marc Sabat (Berlin), Larry Polansky (Hanover, NH) and Donnacha Dennehy (Dublin).
- Garrett Sholdice
Garrett Sholdice (b.1983) is an Irish composer currently based in York, England.
In the past six years, Garrett has had his music performed by, amongst others, the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, the Concorde Ensemble, Madrid-based piano trio Trio Arbós, violinist Elizabeth Cooney, American pianist Matthew McCright, the RIAM Percussion Ensemble, the Crash Ensemble, the Elias String Quartet, the ConTempo String Quartet, the Dublin Guitar Quartet, Trio Scordatura, the University of York’s Chimera Ensemble and the New York Miniaturist Ensemble. His music has been performed in Dublin, New York, Amsterdam, Ghent,at the Galway Arts Festival, the Sligo New Music Festival, the Printing House Festival of New Music, the York Late Music Festival and at the Spitalfields Festival in London.
He has been awarded the National Chamber Choir’s annual Gerard Victory Commission (2002) and the National Concert Hall’s Composer’s Choice Commission (2005). Garrett has also been commissioned by Irish chamber choir New Dublin Voices (with funds provided by the Irish Arts Council) and the York Late Music Festival.
As an undergraduate in Trinity College, Dublin, Garrett studied composition with Donnacha Dennehy. A Professional Development and Training Award from the Irish Arts Council and a Rosalyn Lyons Masters Scholarship supported his MA in composition at the University of York during the academic year 2006/2007. He is currently pursuing a PhD in composition at the University of York with Nicola LeFanu and William Brooks.
Garrett often performs on electric bass guitar and piano, usually as an improviser. In the past four years, he has performed as a soloist in Dublin and York and as a member of a number of ensembles, including Dublin group Forms (formerly Ensemble Imp), the York Free Improvisation Group and the DUMS Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Garrett is a co-director of Ergodos. He is also an SPNM short-listed composer and a member of the Irish Young Composer’s Collective. His website can be found at www.garrettsholdice.com and his myspace page is at www.myspace.com/garrettsholdice.
YCC 