Frank Corcoran, James Joyce, and the Poetics of Myth
A Celebration of Frank Corcoran at 70
James Joyce Centre
35 North Great George’s Street Thursday 26. November
8pm
In collaboration with
The James Joyce Centre
&
The Association of Irish Composers
PART ONE
Barra O Seaghdha: Frank Corcoran: An Introduction
Benjamin Dwyer: Joycean Aesthetics, Ethnic Memory and Mythopoetic Imagination in the Music of Frank Corcoran
PART TWO
Benjamin Dwyer Interviews Frank Corcoran
Frank Corcoran: Rhapsodietta Joyceana (world première) (Martin Johnston, cello)
Frank Corcoran: Variations on A Mháirín de Barra (1995) (Adele Johnston, viola)
Frank Corcoran: Seven Theses on Joyce and Music (Frank Corcoran)
Frank Corcoran: Joycespeak Musik (tape, 1995)
Frank Corcoran: Seven Miniatures (world première) (Alan Smale, violin)
1) Quasi Una Sarabanda
2) Andando
3) Alla Marcia
4) Alla Giga
5) Sempre Col Legno
6) Ferocissimo
7) Quasi Una Sarabanda
Frank Corcoran
Born 1944 in Borrisokane, Tipperary, Frank Corcoran studied philosophy, music, ancient languages and theology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth, University College Dublin and the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome. Further studies in composition were undertaken with Boris Blacher in Berlin. In 1980, he took up a composer fellowship the Berliner Künstlerprogramm. In the 1980s, he taught in Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg, where he was Professor of Composition and Theory at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater. He was a Fulbright Visiting Professor and a Fulbright Scholar in the U.S. in 1989 and 1990, and has been a guest lecturer at, among others, CalArts, Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin (Madison), University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee), Princeton University and New York University. He participated in the 2005 Joyce Summer School at Trieste University giving a paper entitled ‘Joyce and Music’. Corcoran’s output includes orchestral, choral, chamber and electroacoutic music. His Joycepeak – Musik won the Studio Akustische Kunst 1995, Sweeney’s Vision won the Bourges Festival Premier Prix in 1999, and Quasi Una Missa won the 2002 Swedish E.M.S. Prize. Two Unholy Haikus took first prize at the Cork International Choral Festival in 2012 and his Eight Haikus was awarded first prize at the International Foundation for Choral Music in 2013. Corcoran’s music has been performed by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Crash Ensemble (Ireland), the Cantus Chamber Orchestra (Zagreb), Wireworks Ensemble (Hamburg), the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and Antipodes (Switzerland), among many others. His music has been recorded on the Marco Polo, Wergo, Composers Art and Black Box labels. Recent large-scale works include the Cello Concerto, written for Martin Johnston and the Violin Concerto, composed fro Alan Smale, both premièred with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra; and Quasi Una Storia for String Orchestra (2015) for the North South Chamber Orchestra (New York). Frank Corcoran is a founding member of Aosdána and lives in Hamburg and Italy.