Max Porter

You are invited to a public reading by author Max Porter on April 19 at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery in UCC at 7pm. Max will be in conversation with Danny Denton.

Max Porter is the author of The Death of Francis Bacon, praised as ‘a miniature masterpiece’, and ‘a feat of empathy, imagination and literary brio’. His Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller Lanny was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize and the 2019 Wainwright Prize, shortlisted for the 2019 Gordon Burn Prize and shortlisted for both Waterstones and Foyles Book of the Year 2019. It has sold in twenty-three territories. His first novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, won the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Europese Literatuurprijs and the BAMB Readers’ Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. It has been sold in thirty-one territories. Complicité and Wayward’s production of Grief is the Thing with Feathers directed by Enda Walsh and starring Cillian Murphy was performed in Dublin, London and New York. He frequently collaborates with artists and musicians. His most recent project is All Of This Unreal Time, which premiered at Manchester International Festival in July 2021. Max lives in Bath with his family.

UCC Choir & Róisín O’Grady (soprano)

Directed by Dr. Eva McMullan-Glossop

“ . . . you can look to nature as a teacher; . . . anything that’s happening out there can happen in us. [laughs] And we can coexist, and we can be symbiotic, and we can collaborate.”

adrienne maree brown from the podcast On Being

What might we learn from the transformative evolution of butterflies in a time of climate catastrophe? The US theatre artist and educator Beth Osnes has developed The Butterfly Affect – an immersive performance experience which neatly splices the idea of the ‘butterfly effect’ (small trivial events / actions resulting in something with greater consequence) with the word ‘affect’ – embodied feeling.

The Butterfly Affect is a guided experience to travel through a butterfly’s transformation from egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, to butterfly. Gently embodying each stage of a butterfly’s metamorphosis through costumes, meditative support and rich sound environments The Butterfly Affect expands perspectives, insights, ideas, and feelings. Join us for an invitation to explore our own potential for transition and transformation, with the butterfly as guide. How might radical change be embodied to forge an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future for all? What if we already have within us all that we need to be the change we yearn for? Reflect, dream, imagine with a Monarch, Blue Morpho, or Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies.

This is a free but ticketed individual event. It will take between 15 & 30 minutes to transition between stages, with guided support.

Please book a slot here on Eventbrite (under When and Where – Date and Time – More options)

Schedule (3 places available in each 30 min slot):

11.00 – 11.30am               

11.30 – 12.00pm               

12.00 – 12.30pm                

12.30 – 1.00pm                  

1.00 – 1.30pm                    

1.30 – 2.00pm    

4.30 – 5.00pm                    

5.00 – 5.30pm      

5.30 – 6.00pm                    

6.00 – 6.30pm                    

Over 18 year olds only.

John Banville

You are invited to a public reading by acclaimed author John Banville, in conversation with Dr Eibhear Walsh on April 5^th in the Dora Allman Room in the Hub at 6:30pm.  A prolific novelist, Banville’s novel The Sea (2005) won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. In The Sea an elderly art historian loses his wife to cancer and feels compelled to revisit the seaside villa where he spent childhood holidays. His novel The Infinities was published in 2009. He received the Franz Kafka Award in 2011. According to the New York Times, Banville’s latest novel “The Singularities” is an ambitiously referential work that confronts some of humanity’s greatest challenges. John Banville lives in Dublin and was Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at UCC in 2019.

David Syme

UCC – Ritmüller Classical Artist in Residence

Pianist David Syme, UCC/Ritmüller Classical Artist in Residence, will offer a program of short pieces drawn from his vast repertoire. 

Join us live at the Aula Maxima and online: https://www.youtube.com/user/musicatUCC

David Syme, American piano virtuoso living in Ireland, has had a long and colourful career. He has performed in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, and in major venues in 17 European countries, Canada and Mexico.

An alumnus of Juilliard and Indiana University, Syme was a protégé of the legendary Jorge Bolet. He was schooled in the grand tradition of the great masters, and also studied with Ozan Marsh, Sascha Gorodnitzki, Ania Dorfmann, Louis Kentner and Constance Keene. He has recorded two dozen CDs with such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, and the Czech National Symphony. He was recently given an honorary diploma by the Royal Irish Academy of Music. 

In addition to his international touring, he hosts a concert series from his home near Castletownbere. 

David is the UCC/Ritmüller Classical Artist in Residence and has now begun teaching private lessons under the auspices of the university. 

SymePiano.com

The Wonderism Festival: A Cork Opera House Creating Together Production in Association with the Department of Theatre, University College Cork (UCC).

The Wonderism Festival is curated by the cohort of producers emerging from the MA in Arts Management and Creative Producing at University College Cork in partnership with Cork Opera House. Using conventional and unconventional spaces within Cork Opera House and taking place on Thursday March 30th, this is a one-day festival for everyone, with the theme of ‘Childlike Wonder’ at its centre. Our programme comprises an exciting range of music, art and storytelling showcasing both emerging and established artists alongside students from Cork.

“Wonderism” is an imagined word which represents a nugget of joy and creativity intended to spark a feeling of childlike wonder. 

We aim to cultivate multidisciplinary and joyful experiences in the arts for everyone, we invite our audiences to immerse themselves in adventures of play and wonder.

We aspire to contribute to Cork’s creativity by bringing together audiences and artists while encouraging curiosity through the arts.

Dr Rosaleen McDonagh is a playwright, performer, columnist for The Irish Times and a member of Aosdána. Her plays include The Baby Doll Project, She’s Not Mine, Rings, The Prettiest Proud Boy and Mainstream. Her most recent commissions were Walls and Windows for the Abbey Theatre and Contentious Spaces for the Project Arts Centre. Rosaleen holds a BA, two MPhils from Trinity College Dublin and a PhD from Northumbria University. She is a board member of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre and was appointed a Human Rights Commissioner in June 2020. Her first book Unsettled was shortlisted for The Journal Best Irish Published Book of the Year in 2021.
Unsettled explores racism, ableism, abuse and resistance as well as the bonds of community, family and friendship. As an Irish Traveller writing from a feminist perspective, McDonagh’s essays are rich and complex, raw and honest, and, above all else, uncompromising.

Rosaleen will deliver a presentation on her experiences in the context of theatre and disability.

Monday, March 27th, 5–7pm, Film & Screen Media Auditorium (Kane Building B10B)

Dr Rupert Stasch (University of Cambridge)

The Plural Reflexivity of TV Editors: Interactions of Documentary Realism, Photographed Speech, and the Mythos of Primitive and Modern

Chair: Dr Tatsuma Padoan (UCC)

 All are very welcome!

Abstract: This talk examines the appeal to viewers of television documentaries about “tribal” societies, through the example of the BBC 2 series My Year with the Tribe. About fifty TV shows have been made about Korowai of Indonesian Papua. I have observed filming of several of these, but in the case of My Year with the Tribe, I was able to do fieldwork on editing. This show followed normal primitivist and “going native” conventions of this wider genre of programming. But the show was unusual in also engaging in a meta-televisual exposé of the inaccuracy of tourists’ and media workers’ fantasies about who Korowai are. This talk touches on editors’ struggle with tensions between these two concepts of the show, and more generally examines the aesthetic, communicative ideas guiding their production and post-production work. Partly in the tradition of Goffman’s essay on “Footing,” I focus on the diversity of voicing configurations involved in the show’s depiction of speech, and diversity of its configurations of visual perspective and address, as these relate to engaging and pleasing viewers.

Dr Rupert Stasch is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, where he has worked since 2015, after teaching for long periods at UC San Diego and Reed College. He is the author of Society of Others: Kinship and Mourning in a West Papuan Place (2009) and numerous articles based on fieldwork with Korowai of Indonesian-controlled Papua since 1995. He has a background in linguistic, semiotic, and symbolic anthropology. In addition to researching primitivist tourism, he has been publishing on state formation and social change at the far rural periphery, and doing archival work on a fascist-led overland trek in Dutch New Guinea in the 1930s.

The Vanbrugh & Friends

Brahms String Quintet Op.111

THE VANBRUGH AND FRIENDS

Keith Pascoe, violin
Marja Gaynor, violin
Simon Aspell, viola
Ed Creedon, viola
Christopher Marwood, cello

Friday 24th March at 1.10pm

BRAHMS – String Quintet Op.111

The Vanbrugh and their guests present Brahms’magnificent 1890 string quintet Op.111. This work started life in the composer’s sketches for a fifth symphony and its final form retains an orchestral grandeur, both in structure and in texture. This is truly one of the finest works in the chamber music repertoire, exuberant, elegant, subtle, original, and unmistakably Brahms.

THE VANBRUGH

Keith Pascoe, violin – Simon Aspell, viola – Christopher Marwood, cello

The Vanbrugh has evolved from the work of the Vanbrugh Quartet which was based in Cork as RTE’s Resident Quartet from 1986 to 2013 and as Artists-in-Residence at University College, Cork from 1990 until the retirement of violinist Gregory Ellis in 2017. Over three decades the quartet gave close to three thousand concerts, presenting the chamber music repertoire to audiences throughout Ireland, Europe, the Americas, and the Far East. Commercial recordings include more than thirty CDs of repertoire ranging from the complete Beethoven quartets to many contemporary Irish works. In 2016 the group was presented with the National Concert Hall’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their contribution to music in Ireland.

Keith Pascoe, Simon Aspell, and Christopher Marwood continue to perform together as the nucleus of the Vanbrugh and are joined by guest artists for performances of a wide range of chamber music repertoire.  For this concert they welcome violinist Marja Gaynor and violist Ed Creedon.

Marja Gaynor, violin

Originally from Finland, Marja Gaynor is a Cork-based violinist and viola player. She specialises in Baroque music and is a member of Irish Baroque Orchestra and Camerata Kilkenny, recording and touring with both groups regularly. She has also performed with Irish Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Marsyas, Dunedin Consort, London Handel Players, King’s Consort and Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, and plays contemporary music with Dublin Sound Lab. Marja is known as a versatile musician at home in many different styles, a fluent improviser, as well as arranger and curator. Her string arranging credits include Oscar-winning song “Falling Slowly” from the movie Once, and Marja is also a long time member of the cult band Interference. Upcoming projects include chamber music tours with the Vanbrugh and performing and arranging as a trio with uilleann piper David Power and flamenco guitarist John Walsh. She teaches violin and chamber music in MTU Cork School of Music.

Ed Creedon, viola

Ed Creedon enjoys a varied career as a viola player, performing chamber music, in recitals and as an orchestral musician. Recent performances include the National Concert Hall Chamber Music Gathering, tours throughout Ireland with the Lir String Quartet, tours to Finland, France and India with Camerata Ireland as well as solo performances with Camerata Ireland and Barry Douglas.

Chamber music highlights include performances with the Vanbrugh Quartet, as well as appearances with the Ficino Ensemble in Dublin, the Piatti Quartet in the U.K., at the Ortús Festival in Cork, and repeat invitations to the Clandeboye Festival in Belfast and the Killaloe Festival of Chamber Music. For four consecutive summers he took part in the West Cork Chamber Music Festival’s Young Musicians Programme.

Ed comes from Cork and studied with Constantin Zanidache and Simon Aspell at the Cork School of Music.

by Roderick Ford

Three sisters are trapped in a dystopian nightmare in Roderick Ford’s powerful tale of death, disability and desire. In the world outside their flat, an emergent fascist state is “cleansing” disabled people from society. Inside, Yobby, locked in her cage, dreams of killing her little sister Caoimhe. Caoimhe, locked in her leg braces, dreams of her headless lover. Their sick mother, Yulia, fearing for the future, pleads with God on the telephone. God refuses to respond. But God alone knows what fresh hell will happen when middle sister Neon says she’s leaving to find a future of her own.

• Please note audiences are required to wear a face covering at the Saturday 11th performance to encourage access for all.
• All performances will be captioned.
• There is no strobe lighting in the production.
• The show duration is 90 minutes.
• Please note this performance is recommended for age 16+, and contains strong language, explicit sexual references, and on-stage violence.

The Creative Team

Roderick Ford is an autistic poet and playwright. His work is populated by marginalised outsider figures and explores otherness and othering, voicelessness and estrangement. He was heavily medicated until 1995, when free at last, he began writing poetry.  He won many awards, short-listings and commendations for his poetry, and has two collections The Shoreline of Falling, and The Green Crown.  He has had a poem (Giuseppe) on the National Curriculum for A Level literature in the UK since 2015. In 2015, with the support of Arts and Disability Ireland and their provision of great mentors, he began writing for theatre. ADI funded the writing of a magic-realist play Ob Gob in 2016.  A gothic play, The Spider’s House, funded by the ADI/PAC Realise Production Award and Dublin City Council was performed at Project Arts Centre in March 2020. The apocalyptic Thief of Worlds was developed in 2020/2021 with the support of the Arts Council and Axis Ballymun.  

Donal Gallagher is co-founder and co-director of Asylum Productions and has directed all of their work to date. in 2022 he co-wrote and directed Everything Must Go! for Asylum/Clonmel Junction Festival/Once Of

In 2019 he co-adapted and directed The Big Chapel X (Asylum, Kilkenny Arts Festival & the Abbey Theatre – nominated for 4 Irish Theatre awards). Other Asylum directing credits include The Chronicles of Oggle (“**** …pure gold…” – Sunday Business Post); Pondlife Angels and Bedbound (“…completely brilliant…” – The Irish Times), both by Enda Walsh. Freelance credits include What I (Don’t) Know About Autism for the Abbey – the first ‘relaxed performance’ in the history of the national theatre (“…**** a riveting celebration of difference…” Irish Times). Freelance Inclusive theatre work includes; co-creating, directing and performing in The Water Boys for Equinox Theatre Company, and the co-founding of Cork Deaf ensemble ‘Spirit Of Sign’. Other freelance credits include Love, Peace and Robbery and Hung Juror, both by Liam Heylin for the Everyman. International directing work includes: The Miracle for T.J.G, Dresden, (2 years in Rep), and the world premiere of Chatroom by Enda Walsh at the National Theatre, London (“…a chilling and powerful tale… staged with enormous aplomb…the best possible advertisement for theatre…” – Lyn Gardner, The Guardian). Future work includes The Local at KAF for Asylum, and the final year (BA Performance) show for TU Dublin. Donal and Asylum co-director Medb Lambert are currently artists-in-residence with Watergate Theatre Kilkenny for 2023.

Medb Lambert is a theatre maker, creator and designer and co-Artistic Director of Asylum Productions. From 2006 – 2022 Medb worked at KCAT Arts Centre where she was a founder and Artistic Coordinator of Equinox Theatre Company. Her new play The Local (in collaboration with Emma O’Grady and Clare Monnelly) will be presented at Kilkenny Arts Festival 2023. Recent design work includes: Everything Must Go! By Aideen Wylde and Donal Gallagher (Asylum/Clonmel Junction/Once Off 2022); Julius Caesar (TU Dublin Conservatoire 2022); Country and Irish by Pat McCabe (Fight to Flight 2022); The Chronicles of Oggle by Peter Gowen (Fight to Flight/Asylum 2015-2022); What I Don’t Know About Autism by Jody O’Neill (Abbey Theatre 2021/20); The Callan Energy Store (Asylum/ Loosysmokes 22); We All Come From Somewhere (Equinox Theatre Company 2021, online at weallcomefromsomewhere.com). She is artist in residence at the Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny 2023 with Donal Gallagher.

Cormac O’Connor is a creative sound designer, video designer, projection mapper, filmmaker, composer, and live performer. As a sound and video designer, he has designed over 120 theatre productions in Ireland and the U.K. Career highlights include the award-winning Disco Pigs for Corcadorca Theatre Company, Demon Juice at the Royal Opera House (2007), The Enchanted Room (a sound installation at Royal Festival Hall 2002), The Straits (a Herald Angel award winner for Paine’s Plough at the Edinburgh Festival 2003), Push at the Almeida and Sadler’s Wells Theatre (2004), directing and sound design for Shostakovich (Royal Festival Hall 2013), Finding Mrs. Havisham (2020), There Will Be No Silence  by David Downes (2021), and About Blank by Adam Wyeth (2021). Cormac has collaborated with Graffiti Theatre Company on 18 theatre productions for young people. He created sound design and projection mapping on Glow for Cork City Council’s Christmas shows in 2013, 2017, 2019 and 2020. As a composer, he has composed music for several TV documentaries for Harvest Films (Pat Collins), the opera Madam T for Meridian Theatre Company/Cork City of Culture 2005, and two radio plays with Enda Walsh. As a filmmaker, Cormac has made documentaries about older people and creativity as well as short films and music videos for bands. As a performing musician, Cormac has played with many bands and produced albums for acts such as The Frank and Walters and Dagenham Yanks.

Megan Haly is a recent graduate of the BA in Theatre and Drama Studies course at MTU Cork School of Music. She is also a member of The National Youth Theatre in London where she recently performed a piece on women’s rights and activism at The Rose Bruford Theatre. Megan has worked on three feature films this year, Swing Bout written and directed by Maurice O’Carroll and produced by ORion Productions, LOW written and directed by Owen Warren and produced by Chroma Productions and Midnight City written and directed by Luke Mahony all due for release this coming year. Previous credits also include: Stand To (won ‘Best Actress’ at the New York International Film Awards 2022) Girls & Boys – one women show – in training (Amy Prendergast), Connie in Scenes from the Big Picture – in training (Regina Crowley), Ruby in From The Ashes (Jeremy Wiles), Anna in Till You Fall Asleep (Sarah Horgan), Brigid in Coleen (Shannon Haly, Elizabeth Murphy).

Claire Loy is a film, stage and television actor. Born in Louth, she initially received a degree in Archaeology at University College Cork before changing her focus to acting. Some of her previous stage credits include The Mai, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Erin Connolly and The Children of Lir. Her screen work includes The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh, The Gates, Vikings: Valhalla (s2) for Netflix, The Outpost (CW), The Vanishing Triangle and the new Netflix series On Record. Claire trained at Bow Street Academy for Screen Acting in Dublin, Gaiety Cork, and with modern- realist technique practitioner Tom Kibbe. 2023 will be off to a busy start for Claire as she will be working on several screen projects before she embarks on Asylum Theatre’s new play Daughter of God.  

Michaela Murphy’s Irish theatre credits include: Spring Awakening (Smock Alley), Sister Act (National Concert Hall), Back up dancer Take That (Three Arena), Ensemble Visiting Operas (Cork Opera House), Various pantos (Everyman Palace Cork). UK Theatre:  Jack Frost and the Search for Winter (Leeds Playhouse/Regional UK Tour/Sheffield Crucible), Cassie and the Lights (Vaults Festival, Adelaide Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe), The Tempest (Outdoor Finsbury Circus), Piramania (Upstairs at the Gatehouse/Edinburgh Fringe), Reconstituted (Theatre503). Workshop: Julius Caesar (The Playground Theatre/ The Hemingford Arms), The Whistleblower (Rehearsed Reading, The Old Diorama Arts Centre). Cabaret: Festive Folklore (The Actor’s Church), The Phase (All That Scratch/Podcast, The Other Palace). Short Film: Home for Aged Time Travellers (Print Room Productions). Commercial: Dublin Heritage App (App 2022), Go Compare (TV 2021), Life Insurance (TV International 2019). Training: (Musical Theatre Diploma) Irish College of Musical Theatre, (First Class BA (Hons) Actor Musicianship) Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

Eleanor Walsh is a performer, writer, storyteller, and an autism and disability advocate. Recent theatre credits include Yellow (Jody O’Neill), The Amanda (Saoirse) Show (Scream for Ireland), What I (Don’t) Know About Autism (Abbey Theatre), Home: Part One (Abbey Theatre), and Dear Ireland: Part One (These Four Walls by Sinéad Burke) (Abbey Theatre). Recent film credits include The Merrow (dir. Al Bellamy, Project Arts Centre). Eleanor is featured in “Be Inspired! Young Irish People Changing the World” by Sarah Webb, published by O’Brien Press.

Daughter of God is supported by The Arts Council of Ireland | An Chomhairle Ealaíone and produced in partnership with Cork OperaHouse, UCC Department of Theatre, Granary and co-produced by Once Off Productions.

Daughter of God was also supported by Fishamble: The New Play Clinic

A new one-day festival curated by Jody O’Neill and presented by Cork Opera House featuring work by neurodivergent artists.

This inaugural festival will provide a platform to a number of neurodivergent artists across the day and will feature writers and performers such as COH & UCC Theatre Artist-in-Residence Jody O’Neill, Stefanie Preissner, Kel Menton and Ian Lynam, as well as students from the neurodiverse community in UCC. Fiona Ferris (Deputy CEO, AsIAm) will chair a panel discussing processes of creating work as a neurodivergent artist, and Red Ink will host an open lunch discussing items of inspiration for their work.

The festival will take place across five events at UCC on March 10th 2023. All events are free, but booking is required. Tickets available from corkoperahouse.ie.

The Dónal ‘Doc’ Gleeson Awards

UCC Department of Music Student Performers

In memory of their colleague, Dónal Gleeson, the Dublin Postal Clerks Branch of Communication Workers Union has established a fund to enable the University to provide a number of Instrumental Tuition Awards. Not more than four awards are made each year to deserving undergraduate students in the Department of Music to help them defray the cost of the individual instrumental lessons they are required to take with an approved teacher.

This year’s recipients of the Dónal ‘Doc’ Gleeson Awards are: Donnchadh Hughes, Iona Ritchie, Eve Whelan & Jamie Reese Benson.

Donnchadh Hughes

Donnchadh Mac Aodha is a 20-year-old composer and multi-instrumentalist from Dundalk, Co.Louth. He is a Quercus Creative and Performing Arts Scholar and a 2^nd year Arts-Music student, studying Music and Irish. Donnchadh learned his flute playing from Bronagh Needham, daughter of Roscommon flute player Peig Needham, and later with Cian Kearins from Co Sligo. He also attended summer schools and festivals learning from players such as Aoife Granville, John Wynne, Dave Sheridan and Louise Mulcahy. In recent years, Donnchadh was awarded the Mícheál Ó hEidhin medal by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann for achieving distinction in his grade 8 SCT flute exam and reached the final of the Bonn Óir Seán Ó Riada competition in 2020. He is a 3 time All Ireland Champion on flute, most recently winning the Senior Flute Slow Airs title in Mullingar 2022. He is currently studying piano under Michael McHale at Cork School of Music, and harp with Niamh O’Brien as part of his degree course at UCC.

Donnchadh is very grateful to be the recipient of a Dónal ‘Doc’ Gleeson Award, which he hopes to put towards the purchase of a new Eb flute. 

Iona Ritchie

Iona Ritchie is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and second year Music and English student from Dunmore East, Co. Waterford. Iona has achieved two diplomas (DipLCM) in Irish Music Performance on both Fiddle and Button Accordion from the London College of Music, where she also received a 98% in her Grade 8 in Melodeon. A member of CCÉ Cathair Phort Láirge, she has represented her branch and is a county, provincial and All Ireland prize-winner in both singing and melodeon. In 2021, she competed in Fleadhfest in the Traditional English Singing category. She has played nationally and internationally with Music Generation Waterford’s Senior Traditional Ensemble and is a member of Craanhill Ceilí Band and Grúpa Cheoil.  She has performed in concerts, competitions and T.V shows, including PBS’s “Ireland with Michael” and “Other Voices”. Iona also enjoys teaching and giving workshops in traditional singing. Iona is a Quercus Creative & Performing Arts Scholar and was a recipient of the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Scholarship in 1^st year.  

Eve Whelan

Eve is a second year BMus student from Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. At age nine she began learning to play the trumpet in her local marching and concert band. A lifelong love of singing and songwriting led to the release of her debut EP “Reflection“ in 2021, which was written, performed, recorded and mixed by Eve from her home studio. She was featured on Spin 1038 “One To Watch” and her song “August“ was featured on Hotpress “New Irish Songs To Hear This Week“. Her latest single “Wasted Youth“ was featured on Goldenplec “Fresh Fridays – New Irish Music“ and received national radio airplay. Eve performed in the “Clonmel Song Cycle”, composed by Eamon O’Malley which was featured on RTÉ Culture Night- Live from Lough Boora. She feels deeply honoured to have been awarded the prestigious Donal ‘Doc’ Gleeson Award and will be performing her original songs at the concert.

The Looking Glass Anthology

A reflective collection of audiovisual works

The Looking Glass Anthology is a collection of beautiful, thought-provoking, audio-visual works by a range of musicians and poets that capture what the archives mean to them on a personal level.

The four works in the collection include pieces from Matt McGinn, Rachael Boyd, Stephen Sexton and Eoin O’Callaghan. Each film is different in its own way, yet also complimentary of the whole.

The project challenges us to put ourselves in the shoes of those from the past and imagine what the future may be like, as well as to look within ourselves for answers, in this way being both retrospective and introspective. The pieces are thought provoking, uplifting, bittersweet, challenging, sentimental, heart breaking and inspiring.

Reading Series

Prof. Jackie Kay, CBE

Jackie Kay is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, and is currently the Scottish Poet Laureate. She is known for her works Other Lovers, Trumpet and Red Dust Road, among many other books. Kay has won many awards, including an MBE, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Scottish Book of the Year Award, and the CLPE Poetry Award. She’ll be reading & in conversation with Liz Quirke at 6.30pm, 8^th March, in the Dora Allman room in The Hub, UCC.

Why was Columbo such a good detective? Because he paid attention – to his work – 24/7. The real question, though, is why was Columbo – a show ostensibly about a shabby workaholic – so popular over so many decades (69 episodes from 1968 to 2003)? This paper will explore the latter question, focusing in particular on the memorable performance of Peter Falk as the absentminded but incisive sleuth. Falk’s distinctive performance of the Lieutenant emphasises how we are encouraged to pay attention under late capitalism, a process which still resonates for our lives today. Drawing out how Columbo encourages us to attend to the world requires engagement with both the attention-seeking nature of Television as a medium (as discussed by Ellis, Mellencamp, Caughie, Lotz, et al.), as well as with theories of attention more broadly (e.g. those of Crary, Beller, Citton). In so doing we can uncover much about society’s transformation in recent decades, and indeed, how we are now expected to perform, learn, police, and situate ourselves in an all-surveilled world of 24/7 attention to screens.

Click here to join us on Microsoft Teams at 4pm on 7th of March 2023

David Martin-Jones is Professor of Film Studies, University of Glasgow, UK. His specialism is film-philosophy, and his research engages with world cinemas. He is the author/editor of nine books, including Deleuze and World Cinemas (shortlisted for the BAFTSS Annual Book Award), Cinema Against Doublethink, and Columbo: Paying Attention 24/7 (shortlisted for the MeCCSA Best Monograph Award). He has published in numerous journals including Cinema Journal, Screen, Third Text, Film-Philosophy, Deleuze and Guattari Studies and Transnational Screens, and is co-editor of the Bloomsbury monograph series Thinking Cinema.

Nathan Sherman & Alex Petcu

Shades and Half Lights – viola and percussion

Nathan Sherman (viola) & Alex Petcu (percussion)

“Shades and Half Lights” (PRS Beyond Borders Tour)

Programme

Premieres of works by Benedict Schlepper Connolly, Áine Mallon, Ed Bennett, and Kevin O’Connell, as well as works by Kate Moore.

Nathan Sherman

A native of the USA, Nathan Sherman lives in Dublin, Ireland where he enjoys a versatile career as a violist. He studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Royal Academy of Music and the Escuela Superior de Musica Catalunya where he received First Class Honours. He is equally at home performing historically informed music, contemporary and chamber music. He performs regularly with the period ensembles Irish Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Marsyas and Camerata Killkenny, and contemporary groups Evlana, Crash Ensemble and Kirkos. He is in demand as a chamber and orchestral musician, and is Artistic Director of Ficino Ensemble. He plays regularly with Camerata Ireland, the RTE Orchestras, Ulster Orchestra, European Union Chamber Orchestra, and for several years was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra. He is especially interested in contemporary music, and premiered Ian Wilson’s Apparitions in Dublin and New York, and recently premiered a solo work for viola by Kevin O’Connell. In 2018 he gave the Irish premiere of Thomas Ades’ Four Quarters with Ficino Ensemble, and recorded a new commission by Garrett Sholdice. Nathan plays a fine viola made by Joseph Curtin and a bow made by Gary Leahy.

Alex Petcu

An Irish musician of Romanian origin, Alex is quickly establishing himself both nationally and internationally as a percussionist of the finest calibre. His recent appearances as a soloist with both RTE orchestras the Irish Chamber Orchestra are some of his main highlights so far. His debut album, “Alex Petcu: In Time”, released on the RTE lyric fm label, showcases both seminal works and new contributions to the percussion repertoire.

An active freelance musician, Alex performs with a wide variety of ensembles and in a range of settings. He regularly performs with the Crash and Hard Rain ensembles, two of Ireland’s main contemporary groups, and the various professional orchestras in Ireland. He is also heavily involved in the creation of new music and regularly works with composers. Recent projects include “Beats, Bells and Bridges” a collaboration with composer, Tom Lane and “Invitation to a Journey”, a dance/theatre/music collaboration with music by Deirdre Gribbin.

Aside from his performing activities, he is also a keen teacher and currently teaches percussion at the CIT Cork School of Music. He holds an MA in music performance, and an MSc and BSc in Physics.

Reading Series

Lisa Harding, UCC Writer-in-Residence

You are cordially invited to a reading with the 2023 UCC Arts Council Writer-in-Residence Lisa Harding (author of the novels Harvesting and Bright Burning Things) on Thursday, 2^nd March at 6pm in the Civil Engineering Building, G10, UCC (Maps of the UCC Campus | University College Cork).

Lisa Harding graduated from the MPhil in creative writing from TCD in 2014. Harvesting, her debut novel, won the Kate O’Brien award, was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Kerry Group Prize in 2018. It is being republished in the US in 2023 in a new version, titled Cloud Girls. Her second novel, Bright Burning Things, was published internationally to widespread critical acclaim. It received a starred review in the Publisher’s Weekly, was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, a Dalkey Literary Award, and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a People Magazine Choice, and a read with Jenna Book Club Pick as featured on the Today Show. Both novels are in development for film and TV. Short stories have been published in the Dublin Review, The Lonely Crowd and Winter Papers among others. Plays have been performed at the Battersea Arts Centre, Theatre 503 and the Project Arts Centre. Her third novel, with the working title Wildelings, is under submission.

Roderick Ford is an autistic poet with many awards and shortlistings, two collections, and a poem on the UK National Curriculum since 2015. His work is concerned with otherness, othering and life subsumed in another neurological order.

Ford’s magic-realist play Daughter of God will be produced at The Granary Theatre in the second week of March. In the play, Yulia, a single mother, has three daughters two of whom are disabled: one has crippled legs, the other is brain-damaged and kept in a cage. In the world outside their flat, an emergent fascist state is brutally “cleansing” disabled people from society . . .

For this event, Roderick will be joined by cast member Eleanor Walsh for a conversation with Jody O’Neill. Among other things, they will discuss their / our individual approaches as autistic people to writing and performing for theatre in a neurotypical world.

Eleanor Walsh is a performer, writer, storyteller, and an autism and disability advocate. Recent credits include Yellow (Jody O’Neill), The Amanda (Saoirse) Show (Scream for Ireland), What I (Don’t) Know About Autism (Abbey Theatre), Home: Part One (Abbey Theatre), and Dear Ireland: Part One (These Four Walls by Sinéad Burke) (Abbey Theatre). Eleanor is featured in “Be Inspired! Young Irish People Changing the World” by Sarah Webb, published by O’Brien Press.

Eilís O’Sullivan & Jerry Creedon

Music for flute and classical guitar

Eilís O’Sullivan, flute

Jerry Creedon, classical guitar

AROUND THE WORLD: a dazzlingly diverse recital of flute and guitar music from four continents.

Programme

Béla Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances

Ástor Piazzolla: Histoire du Tango

Jacques Ibert: Entr’acte

Carlo Domeniconi: Sonatina Mexicana

Isaac Albéniz: Asturias

EILIS O’SULLIVAN

Flautist Eilís O’Sullivan is a graduate of MTU Cork School of Music and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. As a scholarship student she graduated with B.A. (Hons) and MMus (Distinction). Eilís was awarded the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, London and first prize in the Governor’s Recital Prize Competition at the Scottish Conservatoire. She performs widely as a solo, chamber and orchestral musician. Recitals include performances at St. Martin in the Fields, London, Sir Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham, NCH Dublin and for the Prince of Wales at Hollyrood Palace, Edinburgh. Guest concerto engagements include performances in Seattle, Glasgow, Edinburgh and as a broadcast with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Dublin. Recent performances include duo recitals with pianists Michael McHale (Crawford Art Gallery; Maynooth University) and Ciara Moroney (MTU) and a series of workshops for West Cork Music’s ‘TuningUp’ outreach scheme with Hifilutin Flute Quartet. As an orchestral musician Eilís has freelanced with the RSNO, SCO, BBC Wales, NSOI and RTÉCO. Currently Eilís lectures at MTU Cork School of Music.

JERRY CREEDON

The lrish guitarist JERRY CREEDON was born in Cork and has studied guitar from a young age. After graduating from University College, Cork, he studied with the famed German guitarist Siegfried Behrend in Germany; a Spanish Government Scholarship enabled him to study at the Andres Segovia Summer School in Santiago de Compostela; the Irish Arts Council grant-aided him to attend master classes given by world-famous virtuoso John Williams in Cordoba.

Jerry is a Lecturer of Classical Guitar and founder of the Classical Guitar Studies Programme (since 1998) at the MTU Cork School of Music. He has attracted some of the World’s most famous guitarists to perform and teach at the CIT Cork School of Music including John Williams, The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Xue Fei Yang, Roland Dyens, Fabio Zanon, Craig Ogden, David Leisner, Christoph Jaggin, Jacob Lindberg and William Carter. Jerry is an experienced musician and has performed in Ireland, Germany and Spain, both as a soloist and a chamber musician. He has appeared with numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles and has his own Jazz Ensemble with which he performs at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival. He has performed at the National Concert Hall, Universities, and numerous Festivals. Jerry has recorded CDs of music by Sanz, Pujol and Villa-Lobos and has founded the highly acclaimed Irish Guitar Quartet. He recently performed on the film score to Paul Mercier’s “Pursuit”.

Barry Kerr

UCC Traditional Artist in Residence 2023

The Department of Music and the School of Film, Music & Theatre, UCC are delighted to present this year’s Traditional Artist in Residence 2023, Barry Kerr.

Originally from the southern shores of Lough Neagh in County Armagh but now living and working in Connemara, Co. Galway, Barry Kerr is one of Ireland’s most accomplished artists. He has toured the world as a solo artist and has been equally at home sharing the stage in the company of other artists including Steve Cooney, Cara Dillon, Julie Fowlis, Lumiere and Dervish. Renowned folk acts such as Karan Casey, Flook, Jiggy, Beoga, Brian Finnegan, Damian O’Kane and Kate Rusby include his compositions in their tour repertoires.

He has performed on some of the most prestigious stages in the world, from Radio City Music Hall in New York to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and has multiple arena tours under his belt. He performed as principal uilleann piper on a symphony orchestra tour of the United States with Celtic Thunder under the direction of conductor David Brophy.

As Artist in Residence at the celebrated Duncairn Centre for Culture and Arts in Belfast for a number of years, Barry played a central role in developing the city of Belfast as a vibrant cultural hub.

Previous works include Cairn (2020) a result of being awarded the Liam O’Flynn Award from The National Concert Hall and the Arts Council in March 2020, Castor Bay (2018) a duet album of traditional song, flute, uilleann pipes and fiddle music with his sister Laura Kerr and guitarist Donogh Hennessy; Boy in a Boat (2015) a collection of original songs; CEATHAIR and Continuum an exploration of the concept of relating visual art with musical performance, storytelling and composition.

‘Just heard Barry Kerr’s Of Sportsmen Bold. What a moment. Stopped me in my tracks. Could not stop listening. Stunning.’ Imelda May

‘Pipes and flute dip and soar with avian elegance’ **** The Irish Times

‘Like Gaughan and Moore, but with his own thing going on, I love this guy’. Mike Harding, BBC

‘Barry Kerr’s Boy in a Boat is an exceptional, original, artistic and enduring masterpiece.’ Irish Music Magazine

Archival collections of manuscript, audio, and visual material form keystones of scholarship on Irish traditional music. Yet, many of them face significant challenges including: media obsolescence; media migration; digital literacy; and preservation, discoverability and access needs. Audio archives that preserve intangible cultural heritage are particularly vulnerable. In a world consumed by spectacle, they are often neglected. They also endure a bias toward literary sources at the expense of oral sources as well as the fetishization of manuscripts and of antiquity. This historiographical survey of lesser-known collections of Irish traditional music outlines some of their challenges and identifies opportunities for their development including: the tracing of networks of music scholarship; the indexing and publication of source material; and the development of new methodologies of music research.

Deirdre Ní Chonghaile

Deirdre Ní Chonghaile is a writer, musician, broadcaster, and curator from the Aran Islands, Co. Galway. She works with artists, communities, and institutions on cultural heritage projects, specializing in Irish language and music archives. She read Music at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, worked at the University of Notre Dame and the Library of Congress, and has taught part-time at the University of Galway. Described as “one of the most important and fascinating books about Irish traditional music in recent memory,” her 2021 monograph Collecting Music in the Aran Islands: A Century of History and Practice won the Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture from the American Conference for Irish Studies. Her next book will be an edition of over fifty traditional songs composed in the Aran Islands from the nineteenth century to the present day. Her exhibition on the pioneering Irish language scholar, newspaper editor, and folklore collector, Prof. Tomás Ó Máille, runs at the Royal Irish Academy in Spring 2023. In January 2023, she was appointed Associate Research Scholar at New York University where she is working on a digital edition of the Irish-American bilingual newspaper, An Gaodhal.

The Seán Ó Riada Memorial Lecture was first established in 1985 by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and has taken place annually ever since.

A public talk series by UCC/Arts Council Film Artist in Residence Maximilian Le Cain.

UCC/Arts Council Film Artist in Residence Maximilian Le Cain will begin his year-long residency with a series of four lunchtime talks that are open to the public.

Noted for his boundary-pushing, radically personal approach to cinema, the Cork-based Le Cain will draw on his own work, the film histories that inspire it and the contemporary contexts that nourish it to present a wide-ranging rethink of what cinema can be in the 21^st century. Challenging accepted notions of film making and history, these talks are sure to prove stimulating to film students, filmmakers or anyone with an interest in the moving image.

Le Cain will discuss such topics as the importance of a personal vision of cinema and how his work has developed as an example of this; the ever-expanding concept of cinema in the 21^st century and how it is fed by cross disciplinary interaction; the challenges of getting work seen and the case study of how these challenges were met by Experimental Film Society, the world renowned maverick filmmaking group he is affiliated with; the importance of collaboration; and histories of alternative filmmaking both past and present.

Mon 30/01 – The Films Only You Can Make

In the first talk, Max will discuss the idea of a personal cinema and how layered this concept has become in the digital age, where the gap between maker and viewer has become increasingly blurred. Through this, he will introduce his own work.

Tues 07/02 – Defining the Impossible

The second session will profile Experimental Film Society (EFS), an influential organisation for the production and distribution of experimental cinema that developed in defiance of a lack of platform for such films in Ireland.

Mon 13/02 – The Audience to Come

The third talk will look at several filmmakers past and present whose work pointed cinema in potentially fruitful directions that it has never followed.

Mon 20/02 – Cinema as Presence and Absence

Finally, he will look at cinema’s porous relationship with other disciplines and the importance of collaboration. His longstanding collaboration with Vicky Langan will be discussed in this context.

Maximilian Le Cain is the ninth UCC/Arts Council Film Artist in Residence. He has created a prolific and acclaimed body of moving image work including features, shorts, installations and film-related performances.

He is currently completing Solitaire (2023), a feature made with the support of an Arts Council Project Award. Recent works include Daughter of the Sun (2021), a short based on the Irish legend of the Cailleach Beara; and Blissed (2022), a feature presented at ECRÃ Festival, Brazil.

Le Cain is affiliated with Experimental Film Society, a Dublin-based company dedicated to the production and distribution of experimental cinema. He frequently works in partnership with Vicky Langan. He is also a programmer and writer on cinema.

All Welcome

The Vanbrugh & Friends

Beethoven String Quintet in C Major Op.29

THE VANBRUGH AND FRIENDS

Keith Pascoe, violin
Marja Gaynor, violin
Simon Aspell, viola
Ed Creedon, viola
Christopher Marwood, cello

FRIDAY 10^th FEBRUARY AT 1.10pm

Beethoven: String Quintet in C major Op.29

The Vanbrugh and their guests present Beethoven’s Op.29 string quintet, ‘The Storm’. Written in 1801, shortly after his Op.18 string quartets this great and seldom heard work combines his mastery of quartet writing with the expansive richness of texture offered by the addition of a second viola.

THE VANBRUGH

Keith Pascoe, violin – Simon Aspell, viola – Christopher Marwood, cello

The Vanbrugh has evolved from the work of the Vanbrugh Quartet which was based in Cork as RTE’s Resident Quartet from 1986 to 2013 and as Artists-in-Residence at University College, Cork from 1990 until the retirement of violinist Gregory Ellis in 2017. Over three decades the quartet gave close to three thousand concerts, presenting the chamber music repertoire to audiences throughout Ireland, Europe, the Americas, and the Far East. Commercial recordings include more than thirty CDs of repertoire ranging from the complete Beethoven quartets to many contemporary Irish works. In 2016 the group was presented with the National Concert Hall’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their contribution to music in Ireland.

Keith Pascoe, Simon Aspell, and Christopher Marwood continue to perform together as the nucleus of the Vanbrugh and are joined by guest artists for performances of a wide range of chamber music repertoire.  For this concert they welcome violinist Marja Gaynor and violist Ed Creedon.

Keith Pascoe, violin

Keith Pascoe was invited to join the Vanbrugh Quartet in 1998 whilst still a London-based musician. He studied violin, piano, chamber music, and conducting at the Royal College of Music under Jaroslav Vanecek, Eileen Reynolds, Aeolian and Amadeus Quartets, and Norman Del Mar. In 1985 he founded the Britten Quartet who became EMI exclusive artists having previously made numerous recordings with other labels, touring the world for ten years. After the Britten Quartet disbanded, it wasn’t long before he heard Ireland’s call…

In Cork he hit the ground running with a hectic national and international schedule, touring for nearly twenty years with the Vanbrugh Quartet. In quieter times he was inspired to take further studies including research into the music of Luigi Boccherini. Several of his critical editions have been published, and he is lecturer in chamber music and violin at TU Dublin.

His solo violin work includes performing cycles of the complete Mozart and Beethoven Sonatas on a tour of Ireland supported by the Arts Council. And as director-violinist of Evlana, an Irish contemporary music group, he continues to work with living Irish composers. As conductor of the Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra for many years, he has conducted and played concertos on numerous occasions.

The renaissance of the Vanbrugh has brought him further inspiration and refocus, opening new possibilities in repertoire, collaborations and artistic challenges.

Marja Gaynor, violin

Marja Gaynor was born in Finland but has been based in Cork since 2005. She was awarded a 1st class honours MA at Cork School of Music, and continued her Baroque violin studies at The Royal Conservatoire of The Hague with Pavlo Beznosiuk.

Marja is a member of the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Camerata Kilkenny. Both ensembles have released much-acclaimed recordings and toured nationally and internationally.  Marja is also a founder member of Giordani Quartet, Ireland’s only chamber group specialising in early Classical repertoire using period instruments.

Outside Ireland Marja works with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and other leading European period orchestras, and is increasingly in demand as a leader, soloist and workshop facilitator. She was the Artistic Director of East Cork Early Music Festival 2013-2015, and has also been invited to act as guest curator for the Kaleidoscope Night concert series.

With her various areas of interest and expertise (Baroque, traditional music, and improvisation) Marja is much sought after as an arranger, studio musician and collaborator in all genres. Her proudest project to date was her critically acclaimed arrangement of Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’ (Cork Opera House), and she also arranged and played the strings of ‘Falling Slowly’ for the movie ‘Once’, Oscar winner for best song in 2008.

Simon Aspell, viola

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, Simon Aspell is one of Ireland’s leading viola players. Aside of his work with Vanbrugh Quartet, Simon has also had a successful career as an orchestral principal, guesting with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, as well as appearing as soloist and recitalist throughout Ireland and the UK. A frequent guest with numerous ensembles, Simon has also joined his colleagues at the RIAM’s chamber group ACE (Academy Chamber Ensemble), performing regularly throughout Ireland. Simon teaches viola and chamber music at MTU Cork School of Music and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, in Dublin.

Ed Creedon, viola

Ed Creedon enjoys a varied career as a viola player, performing chamber music, in recitals and as an orchestral musician. Recent performances include the National Concert Hall Chamber Music Gathering, tours throughout Ireland with the Lir String Quartet, tours to Finland, France and India with Camerata Ireland as well as solo performances with Camerata Ireland and Barry Douglas.

Chamber music highlights include performances with the Vanbrugh Quartet, as well as appearances with the Ficino Ensemble in Dublin, the Piatti Quartet in the U.K., at the Ortús Festival in Cork, and repeat invitations to the Clandeboye Festival in Belfast and the Killaloe Festival of Chamber Music. For four consecutive summers he took part in the West Cork Chamber Music Festival’s Young Musicians Programme.

Ed comes from Cork and studied with Constantin Zanidache and Simon Aspell at the Cork School of Music.

Christopher Marwood, cello

Christopher Marwood graduated from Cambridge University in 1983 and went on to study at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Conservatorium Maastricht. Cello teachers included Florence Hooton, David Strange, Ralph Kirshbaum, William Pleeth and Radu Aldulescu. His chamber music mentor for several years was Emmanuel Hurwitz.

As cellist of the Vanbrugh Quartet for 32 years, Christopher Marwood enjoyed a busy
career performing throughout Ireland and touring worldwide. He co-founded the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in 1996 and remains director of the Festival’s masterclass programme. He is director of the National String Quartet Foundation, planning and raising funds for more than fifty concerts annually. He teaches at MTU Cork School of Music and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and continues to perform both as soloist and as chamber musician. His recent CD of works by Boris Tchaikovsky was nominated for the 2019 International Classical Music Awards.

Dr Nicolas Pillai is Assistant Professor of Creative and Critical Practice at University College Dublin. He currently serves as UCD’s academic lead on Creative Futures Academy, a €10 million project funded by the Human Capital Initiative. He is managing editor of Jazz Research Journal and a BBC Four documentary based on his research won Best Music Programme at the 2020 Broadcast Awards. Publications in progress include the edited collection Rethinking Miles Davis (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2023) and a short play Albert Ayler’s Ghost.

Áine O’Gorman & Victoria Keating

Singer-songwriters from West Cork

Victoria and Áine are each talented artists in their own right, but together, they create magic. Their voices are spellbinding. They write and sing from the heart, making every live performance a wonderful experience.

The singer-songwriters first came together in March 2017, after the bodies of 796 babies and children were found in a septic tank on the grounds of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Victoria and Áine wrote The Poor Ground as a response to this and released it on Irish radio to huge success and impact. Christy Moore called the song “a tour de force.” In demand as songwriters, Áine and Victoria have chosen to write about several subjects close to their hearts: Sweet Bird was written in 2019 for Irish Writers, Artists and Musicians against Fascism, and Becoming, a song for St. Brigid’s Day, was commissioned by Creative Bandon in February 2022, and had its first performance at the inaugural St. Brigid’s Day Festival.

Áine O’Gorman’s debut single Lydia was lauded by Eve Blair of BBC Radio Ulster as “absolutely stunning!” Ryan Freeland, a three-time Grammy Award winning producer said of Lydia, “this is beautiful.” Her single, Desolation, was viewed over 170,000 on Facebook during the first lockdown and her last release, These Empty Rooms, was released last November to a hugely emotional response on both radio and social media.

Victoria Keating has worked with Christy Moore extensively since 2011, providing harmony vocals on five albums. She has toured extensively with Christy and with Declan Sinnott, playing sold out venues such as The Acoustic Stage, Glastonbury and Vicar Street in Dublin. She is building a loyal fanbase on her weekly online show ‘Little Rooms, Big Music,’ live-streamed every Friday from her living room since June 2020. Vickie has released four singles since 2020, all of which have been playlisted on RTÉ Radio One. Her most recent single ‘All Because I Could Not Sleep’ is currently on the RTÉ Playlist. John Creedon has said of Victoria, “I think this woman is quite brilliant. She has a beautiful voice.” Fiachna O’Braonáin of ‘Late Date’ said of the song, ‘it’s absolutely brilliant.’ Victoria is currently recording her debut album, which is a concept album, with Brian Casey of Wavefield Recording Studios in Clonakilty.

Rhona Coughlan set up Ireland’s first inclusive dance company ‘Wheels in Motion’ performing in Father Mathew Hall and Cork Opera House. She then went on to work in radio broadcasting and disability advocacy.

In 2006 Rhona co-founded Croí Glan inclusive dance, performing at Dublin Fringe Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival, Clonmel Junction and working with international choreographers such as Jess Curtis, Kim Epifano and Adam Benjamin.

In July 2022 Rhona was appointed the Artistic Director of Ireland’s first professional qualification in inclusive dance which began in September 2022. Inclusive Dance Cork is based at Dance Cork Firkin Crane and is a partnership between Dance Cork, UCC, Cope Foundation and Cork ETB (Educational Training Board).

This Perforum session will be a facilitated conversation, followed by a Q&A, with Rhona sharing her experiences of the first year of the Inclusive Dance Cork Programme as well as her insights as a professional disabled dancer and performer.

Conversations On A Crosstown Algorithm is an immersive CGI video installation exploring new forms of queer subjectivity and their entanglements with data economy, artificial intelligence, identity politics – this post human fiction probes us to reconsider the relationship between nature and technology at a time of simultaneous crises. Set within the visions and memories of a diverse group of queer people who find themselves trapped in a virtual environment, where they are trying to regain the pre-colonial, pre-capitalist lost memories and rituals while simultaneously trying to awaken their frozen comrades who are trapped within the glitches of human behavioral dysfunction.

Thur 15th Dec – Screenings at 6pm & 8pm

Fri 16th Dec – Screenings at 6pm & 8pm

Sat 17th Dec – Screenings at 3pm, 6pm & 8pm

Doireann O’Malley / Conversations On A Crosstown Algorithm
Artist Talk

Conversations On A Crosstown Algorithm is an immersive CGI video installation exploring new forms of queer subjectivity and their entanglements with data economy, artificial intelligence, identity politics – this post human fiction probes us to reconsider the relationship between nature and technology at a time of simultaneous crises. Set within the visions and memories of a diverse group of queer people who find themselves trapped in a virtual environment, where they are trying to regain the pre-colonial, pre-capitalist lost memories and rituals while simultaneously trying to awaken their frozen comrades who are trapped within the glitches of human behavioral dysfunction.

Jody O’Neill, the UCC-COH Theatre Artist in Residence, will be doing a free performance of her new show ‘Yellow’ on Thursday, 8th Dec at 2 pm in the Granary Theatre.

The event will be followed by a post-show discussion with students from UCC’s Certificate in Disability-Inclusive Practice.

Booking and more information is available on the Eventbrite link here

About Yellow

‘Yellow’ is a joyous, uplifting piece of theatre written by Jody O’Neill, writer of the award-winning, ‘What I (Don’t) Know About Autism’.

It follows the story of Lizzie, a creature of habit, and how her life is irrevocably changed when she sleeps through her alarm clock and has to break her routine, with very unexpected consequences.

Yellow will be followed by a discussion on inclusion, disability and diversity, designed in collaboration with Sinéad Dunne Finnegan and facilitated by Sinéad, alongside students from UCC’s Certificate in Disability-Inclusive Practice.

The play is a relaxed performance and is suitable for all ages.

Age guideline: Suitable for all ages

Yellow was originally commissioned and developed by Draíocht in Dublin 15 through Home Theatre (Ireland). Home Theatre (Ireland) was funded through an Arts Council’s Open Call award with additional support provided by Fingal County Council.

___________________________________________

Produced by Draíocht with Jody O’Neill
Supported by UCC and Cork Opera House
Performed by Eleanor Walsh
Directed by Al Bellamy
Lighting by Sarah Jane Shiels

In this talk, Zeynep Bulut will explore what constitutes sustainability of speech considering cases of fluent and non-fluent aphasia together with the conceptions of embodied voice in experimental music practices. By sustainability of speech, she does not address a linguistic or semantic fluency of speech. Sustainability of speech rather refers to feeling empowered to speak, both within and beyond the bounds of language. Probing cases of aphasia together with experimental music practices prompts such an exploration. Cognitive psycholinguistic and functional approaches describe aphasia as a “breakdown of information processing and linguistic abilities” deriving from a brain injury or trauma (Valletta and Barrett 2018). In a different context, amid social traumas, fragmentation, mobility, and change, sound poetry, contemporary vocal and experimental music practices employ breakdown of language as an aesthetic modality. While performing a metaphor and abstraction, the breakdown of language in these practices also points to the concrete, malleable, embodied, and cross-sensory aspects of voice, speech, and language. In so doing, these practices encourage an ecological account of speech, which underlines the body, voice, and language as plastic, as both malleable and resistant, interacting with the physical and social environment in a multi and cross-sensory network. 

Looking at cases of aphasia together with these aesthetic explorations allows us to consider the ways in which the ecological account questions the limits of the linguistic and semantic fluency of speech. In pursuit of this idea, and drawing on cases of aphasia and examples in sound poetry and experimental music, she will discuss the following: What does the non-fluency of language and speech indicate in the context of speech and language disorders? How does the embodied voice in experimental music treat notions of fluent and non-fluent speech? What might the probe of embodied voice offer for traumatic experiences of brain damage, loss of speech, and brain plasticity? And how may the embodied voice restore the power to speak, and offer a sustainable speech?

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

Location: Aloys Fleischmann Room in Sunday’s Well Music Building. If you would like to attend, please RSVP through music@ucc.ie.

Over the recent decades, there has been a growing research interest to understand the neural mechanisms related to music processing and cognition. One question has attracted much attention, that is, whether early music training experience benefits language learning. After much converging cross-sectional evidence suggesting benefits in speech processing in individuals with intensive early music training experience, now more highly controlled randomized experiments are emerging to better establish the causal relationship as well as to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.

In this talk, T. Christina Zhao will describe in detail two randomized controlled experiments from her lab, with infants who were assigned to complete either an intensive music intervention between 9-10 months of age or a control condition. In the first experiment, infants’ neural discrimination of a nonnative speech contrast was measured using the mismatch response (MMR) in Magnetoencephalography (MEG). Both cortical regions of interest (auditory and prefrontal regions) demonstrated enhanced MMR for the speech contrast in the music intervention group, compared to the control group. In the second experiment, infants’ early sensory encoding of a nonnative speech sound was measured using the frequency-following-response (FFR) by Electroencephalography (EEG), reflecting processing at a much earlier stage along the auditory pathway. The music intervention group demonstrated a reversal of the decline for speech processing that was observed in the control group. Both studies so far demonstrated robust evidence that music intervention in infancy can already affect speech processing at multiple neural processes, paving ways for a comprehensive examination of the full effects of music intervention on infants’ speech learning in the future.

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

To join the event please email: music@ucc.ie

Chinese-born American composer Lei Liang is the winner of the Rome Prize, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Koussevitzky Foundation Commission, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Creative Capital Award, and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His concerto Xiaoxiang for saxophone and orchestra was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2015. His orchestral work, A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams, won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2021.

Lei Liang was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for the inaugural concert of the CONTACT! new music series. Lei Liang’s ten portrait discs are released on Naxos, New World, Mode, Albany and Bridge Records. He has edited five books, and published more than thirty articles. 

Lei Liang studied with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Robert Cogan, Chaya Czernowin, Mario Davidovsky, and received degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (B.M. and M.M.) and Harvard University (Ph.D.). He is Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. His catalogue of more than a hundred works is published exclusively by Schott Music Corporation (New York).

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

To join the event please email: music@ucc.ie

The present study constitutes part of a broader project which, in the form of postdoctoral research, is funded by the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (IKY) and is titled ‘Eastwards heterotopias of the piano’ (2020–2022). The basic aim of the research project is the highlighting of a special and unexplored aspect of the piano: its role outside of its usual context, which is that of classical music. The research programme focuses on discography found in various musical realities within a broad geographical span (Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa). The modeness found in these repertoires constitutes a common feature, which through historical discography often outlines in-between places of the familiar stereotypical dipole forms (popular–scholarly, West–East, foreign–ours). The piano is present in the live performance but also in the discography of the repertoire in question. In the latter, we find it even in the time period of the mobile recording workshops, that is, right from the start of commercial discography (1900). In discography, the piano appears in its familiar ‘classic’ identity, but it also appears in alternative aesthetical attire: it performs a different repertoire in a different manner, constructing an autonomous entity. These alternative aesthetics, active even in the present, remained excluded from research. This lecture will introduce certain special examples from historical discography, at the same time examining the cultural framework of the regions in question.

If you would like to attend this event, please Email; music@ucc.ie for MS teams link to attend.

For many Balinese Hindu peoples, the music of Gamelan Baleganjur provides cosmological comfort, regional pride, and political agency. Its sonic presence is loud, abrasive, and precise, which provide the locus for local ideologies of noise or keramaian. Baleganjur mitigates the social imposition of foreign ideals (i.e. expat communities, tourism, festivilization) with indigenous cosmologies of order and comfort. In Balinese Hindu ceremonies, Baleganjur often announces the presence of a village community and subsequently, the heroic (kepahlawanan) character of its region. Often times, these performances are enacted simultaneously with myriad of other ensembles in cosmopolitan spaces. This presentation highlights a fragment of a larger body of work on Baleganjur, Heavy Metal, and Post-Coloniality. I will discuss the discursive functions of Baleganjur as they are practiced today through performances of glocal sociability. Focusing onreligious festivals, political rallies, and what I theorize as a Noise Aggregate, I argue that Baleganjur, as an agent of comforting noise, affords the conditions of Balinese performativity in reclaiming indigeneity.

If you would like to attend this event, please Email; music@ucc.ie for MS teams link to attend.

In 1850, Oliver Ditson and Sons of Boston published “The Ocean Burial,” a parlour song scored for voice and piano with music by George N. Allen and words by Reverend Edwin H. Chapin. The song narrates the experience of a dying young sailor at sea and would go on to circulate widely across the United States throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. Relying on stock conventions of sentimental literature and music, the song’s protagonist makes an emotional appeal to his listeners: “Oh bury me not in the deep, deep sea.”  

Sentimental death songs like “The Ocean Burial” pervade US nineteenth-century parlour repertory. This body of songs serve as something of a cultural wake, pointing towards an acknowledgment of the reality and centrality of death. But discussions of nineteenth-century sentimentality and its relationship to death have been overdetermined by feminized and depoliticized narratives of “dying daughters and crying mothers” which reinscribe simplistic binaries of masculine/feminine and public/private. 

Tracing the public life of parlour songs, I read “The Ocean Burial” and other sentimental death songs in the context of chattel slavery and the movement to abolish it. Drawing on work in sound studies and Black feminist theory, I listen for the counterpublic resonances of nineteenth-century sentimental death songs–reverberations that have been altogether ignored by musicology’s epistemologies of whiteness. By untethering some of the gendered and racialized associations of US parlour song, I hope to offer a fuller account of who is remembered and memorialized in sentimental death songs and how empathy and feeling were far from apolitical.

Email: music@ucc.ie for MS teams link to attend.

In the mid-1950s, the Eastman Kodak Company famously standardized their Shirley cards test, which used a photograph of a white woman to calibrate color when printing photos. Jersson Garcia, who worked at a photo lab told the NPR: “‘She was the standard,’ ‘so whenever we printed anything, we had to pull Shirley in. If Shirley looked good, everything else was OK. If Shirley didn’t look so hot that day, we had to tweak something — something was wrong.’”^[i] Around the Christmas shopping season of 2009, we saw the same premise illustrated by YouTube videos featuring Hewlett Packard webcams that “can’t see black people.” In this chapter, I argue that, in the same way as Kodak film and HP cameras were calibrated for white skin color, voice- and listening technologies also carry and reproduce the same social bias, discrimination, and racism. Akin to discriminatory real estate and lending-practice redlining, I dub these practices digital aural redlining. I also identify oppositional uses of these technologies that could counter essentializing practices as aural redline jamming. Considering the vocal synthesis software Vocaloid, voice to text technology, and the Voice Bank Monopoly game, I show how vocal and listening technology listens for, against, and in non-recognition of certain accents, vocal performances standing in for non-whiteness. I conclude by calling for each (accented) accent to be justly recognized, affording each voice its multiplicity and humanity.

If you would like to attend this event, please Email; music@ucc.ie for MS teams link to attend.

Dance artist and choreographer Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín has been exploring notions of site with the body and the senses in her UCC Creative Residency, leading the group through curious investigations around the connections between people and places. Join us on Thursday 28 January for a Public Presentation where Siobhán will share some of her practice and discuss her processes. The audience will be briefly invited to drop into their bodies in a guided seated exploration, and there will be a moment to experience a small number of pieces from workshop participants. The event will be hosted by Jools Gilson, Professor of Creative Practice. 

Note: if you did not receive your confirmation email with your zoom link for the event, please check your spam folder.

I am continuously drawn to connecting with people and place. I am looking for where the body meets other forms and how this can lead to a shift in perception; of something’s purpose; of someone’s role; of the structures we surround ourselves with. This workshop will gently explore the textures and gestures of situated space and is open to beginners as well as those with some dance / movement experience.

Please note: 
The workshop entails a gentle and exploratory approach suitable for beginners. Please wear comfortable clothing you can move in. You will also need a yoga mat (or a blanket), pen / paper and colouring pencils. 

Workshops:

Tuesday 5th Jan 6 – 8pm
Tuesday 12th Jan 6 – 8pm
Tuesday 19th Jan 6 – 8pm

Final Online Presentation

Thursday 28^th Jan 6 –7pm

Alan Gilsenan has been exploring the notion of truth in documentary and fiction filmmaking in his UCC Creative Residency. Alan is a writer, film-maker and theatre director who works across documentary, experimental work, and feature films. In this public presentation, he will show short excerpts of his practice, discuss questions around truth in contemporary film making, and invite workshop participants to share some of their explorations. This event will be hosted by Jools Gilson, Professor of Creative Practice. 

Note: please check your spam folder if you haven’t received your confirmation email with your zoom link to the event.

For the year that’s in it, we have put together a bonus FUAIM FESTIVE Friday lunchtime concert as our gift to our wonderful online audience to finish out the teaching term on a festive note. The concert will feature seasonal treats by a range of extraordinary performers, all graduates of the Department of Music, UCC. Featuring: Hannah Collins Mary O’Donnell Jack O’Rourke Ilse de Ziah Kenneth Rice Paul O’Donnell

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

To join the event please email: music@ucc.ie

Paul O Donnell is a composer, performer and lecturer at the University College Cork School of Music and Theatre. His areas of interest are Jazz, World Music and Popular Music. Over the last 25 years he has worked nationally and internationally with a host of jazz luminaries, including: Grant Stewart, Bobby Watson, Bill Berry and Jon Faddis. Paul has also recorded CDs in the genres of Jazz, Latin American and Popular Music. In more recent times he has created  and  led a number of Jazz/World Music groups, including: Enerjazz (2010), The Paul O Donnell Jazz World Ensemble (2011) and his most recent and current project POD Fusion (2012 – present day) which is an intercultural, collaborative ensemble focusing exclusively on Paul’s own original work in the genres of Jazz and World Music. 

As well as his work with the aforementioned groups, Paul is also the keyboardist with TRASNA – another intercultural music-making project, which represented UCC, Cork and Ireland at the Shanghai World Expo in September 2010 and he is the founder and director of COLLAGE – a Soul/Pop ensemble which specialises in original arrangements of contemporary and classic popular music. 

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

To join the event please email: music@ucc.ie

“Pattern Portraits: Composing Intermedia”

Biography

Jeffrey Weeter composes music, designs real-time multimedia instruments, plays the drums and performs musically with technology. He is director of the Cork Audio Visual Ensemble (CAVE) which performed “The Box” at the International Computer Music/Sound and Music Computing Conference in Athens, Greece. His work was also recently performed at Kunsthaus in Zurich, the !f Istanbul AFM International Independent Film Festival, and the Cork Film Festival. During 2011 and again in 2012, collaborations with electronic musician Kate Simko toured the world, touching every continent. 

As an educator, Dr Weeter created the first music composition MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) of it’s kind in collaboration with Kadenze, leaders in learning creative technologies online. The course “Loop: Repetition and Variation in Music”, has been taken by thousands across the globe. 

He completed his Doctorate in Music Composition from Northwestern University, served five years as an audio engineer for the Emmy winning “Oprah Winfrey Show”, Harpo Studios, Chicago and is currently a Lecturer in Music Composition at University College Cork, Ireland.

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

To join the event please email: music@ucc.ie

No strangers to the FUAIM Friday lunchtime concert series, the Irish Guitar Quartet is back for this week’s concert, live-streamed from the Glucksman Gallery.

Be sure to join us at the usual time of 1:10pm at https://www.youtube.com/user/musicatUCC for a wonderful programme that ranges from Argentinian tangos to new age music by David Pritchard and Leo Brouwer – all conveyed through the magic of the guitar.

‘The guitar is a miniature orchestra in itself’ – Ludwig van Beethoven 

‘Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly two’ – Frederic Chopin 

Great minds think alike – if only Chopin had heard four guitars! 

The Irish Guitar Quartet (IGQ) – Jerry Creedon, David Keating, Colin McClean and Aengus Kirakowski – is one of Ireland’s most exciting music ensembles, performing a wide range of music from Baroque to Contemporary fusion. Utilising the wonderful versatility of the instrument to create extraordinary textures and ambience, the IGQ have left nation-wide audiences spellbound.  

The ensemble’s recent performances have included the National Concert Hall International Guitar Series in February, 2020, St. John’s Arts Arts Centre, Listowel; Fota House, Cork; RTE Lyric FM; National Concert Hall, Dublin; Boyle Arts Festival; Clifden Arts Week; Clonakilty International Guitar Festival; UCC; Guitar Festival of Ireland; Siamsa Tire, Tralee; National Opera House, Wexford; Cork Orchestral Society and a Schools Recital Series for West Cork Music.  

http://www.irishguitarquartet.com

https://www.facebook.com/irishguitarquartet/

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

To join the event please email: music@ucc.ie

“The Cork Piper’s Club and its Impact on Irish Traditional Music and Dance in the early 20th century”

Mary is an uilleann piper and musicologist specialising in Irish traditional music. She teaches courses in Irish traditional music and manages the Department’s Traditional Music Archive. Mary learned her uilleann piping from the renowned Cork piper Mícheál Ó Riabhaigh. As manager of the Traditional Music Archive (UCC) she oversees the upgrading and digitising of recordings and she is engaged in the ongoing development of more effective methods of computer cataloguing and indexing field recordings and the many other, ever increasing, holdings of the archive. Mary has acted as archive adviser for the From the Sources project and she was a committee member of the O’Neill/Henebry digitisation project at UCC.  She has also performed extensively from North Carolina in the USA to Warsaw and Lublin in Poland. Mary has worked as a music collector in North Kerry for Muckross House Library, creating one of the largest song collections in the country.

Free. Organised by FUAIM.

To join the event please email: music@ucc.ie

Artist in Residence Danielle McLaughlin, winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction and of the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, has been working on the themes of happiness and hope in short stories in her UCC Creative workshop. In this public presentation, Danielle will read some of her work, discuss the writing craft, and invite a small number of participants to share their writing. Join us for a lively event on writing, happiness, fiction, and hope.  

The event will be hosted by Professor Claire Connolly.

Workshops Dates:

Tuesday 3rd Nov 6 – 8pm

Tuesday 10th Nov 6 – 8pm

Tuesday 17th Nov 6 – 8pm

Online Public Presentation:

Thursday 26^th Nov 6–7pm

Join us on Thursday 29^th October for an online evening event exploring the works of playwright, actor and director John McCarthy, and traditional musician Danny O’Mahony.

Both artists will share their practices and the themes they have been exploring while in residency at UCC, with some participants sharing short spoken / sound pieces developed during the artists’ workshops. This is a fantastic moment to learn more about contemporary playwriting and traditional music.

These workshops will focus on some of the musical sources of North County Kerry.  From historic recordings to the local repertoire, participants will share and learn from what informs O’Mahonys musical journey.

Workshops Dates:

Thursday 8th Oct 6 – 8pm

Thursday 15^th Oct 6 – 8pm

Thursday Oct 6 – 8pm

Final Online Presentation:

With John McCarthy & Danny O’Mahony

Thursday 29^th October 6–7.30pm

This workshop will explore processes of beginning –  and then continuing – writing for the stage. Participants may be experienced writers or trying this for the first time, either way you’ll find fresh and thought-provoking ideas to bring to your practice.

Workshops Dates:

Tuesday 5th Oct 6 – 8pm

Tuesday 12th Oct 6 – 8pm

Tuesday 19thOct 6 – 8pm

Final Online Presentation:

Thursday 28^th Oct 6 –7pm