|
Frank CorcoranIrish Composer |
Martin Johnson on Frank Corcoran’s Cello Concerto
from Contemporary Music Centre Plus 9 months ago Not Yet Rated
Cellist Martin Johnson talks about and performs extracts from Frank Corcoran’s Cello Concerto (2012).
Written for Johnson, it will be premiered by him and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra with conductor Kenneth Montgomery on 13 March 2015 at the National Concert Hall, Dublin.
contemporary music blog
Contemporary
Published 18 April 2015
Sunday 19th April from 17:00 – 18:00 . In Contemporary the Dutch radio premiere of the cello concerto by Frank Concoran (1944).
frank corcoran
Frank Corcoran, James Joyce and the Poetics of Myth: A Celebration of Frank Corcoran at 70
November 26 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm
The James Joyce Centre, 35 North Great George’s Street, Dublin 1, Ireland+ Google Map
[Frank Corcoran, James Joyce and the Poetics of Myth: A Celebration of Frank Corcoran at 70]
The James Joyce Centre, Benjamin Dwyer and the Association of Irish Composers are proud to present this very special concert celebrating the life and work of Irish composer Frank Corcoran. Featuring a keynote address by Benjamin Dwyer, a number of performances by world-class musicians and even a few world premières for good measure, this is sure to be a fitting tribute to one of Ireland’s most renowned contemporary composers. Places are free and can be booked at the bottom of…
Find out more »
Events This Week:
The CMC Salon Series features a concert by the RIAM percussion ensemble, and sees the launch of a new book celebrating the work of Frank Corcoran
24 Nov, 7pm, Katherine Brennan Hall, RIAM, Dublin
More
A concert of Frank Corcoran‘s work, including the premieres of new works, will be presented by the James Joyce Centre and Association of Irish Composers
26 Nov, 8pm, James Joyce Centre, Dublin
More
All flesh(ly)
is ” as ”
grass.
Okay, all we ( flesh/ body / intellect / psyche ) readers of this are AS / LIKE grass ( Tipperary – Irish ?
Capharnaum ? ) . I am camel- and ass- and heifer- and other oviles- delicacy , a frugal meal, si.
Calves and eejits and foals and oinsigh agus …. do become me.
Congratulations to Frank Corcoran!!
Following on Irish composer Frank Corcoran’s success in being awarded The Seán Ó Riada Composition Competition Prize 2012 (See (Sean O Riada)·by the Cork International Choral Festival for his work “Two unholy haikus”, the festival is delighted to hear of his most recent success in winning First Prize in the·2013·International Federation of Choral Music Competition for Choral Composition (See IFCM Competition). The winning work was·· EIGHT· HAIKUS· ( for· S S A A T T B B ) and the Prize will be awarded· later this Spring. ·The festival offers its congratulations to Frank Corcoran on receiving this international award.Frank_Corcoran_2
Frank Corcoran, James Joyce, and the Poetics of Myth
A Celebration of Frank Corcoran at 70
8pm, 26 November
James Joyce Centre,
35 North Great George’s St, Dublin
The Association of Irish Composers in collaboration with the James Joyce Centre present a concert marking the 70th birthday of Frank Corcoran.
On 24 November, The Contemporary Music Centre will launch a new Festschrift, a book celebrating the composer’s life and work, written by Hans Dieter Grunefeld. Two days later a number of musicians and academics will present an event of talks and music about Frank Corcoran.
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)
Quasi Una Sarabanda
Andando
Alla Marcia
Alla Giga
Sempre Col Legno
Ferocissimo
Quasi Una Sarabanda
12 November 2015 – 10:19 am
Festschrift Frank Corcoran – a celebratory book about the life and work of composer Frank Corcoran, edited by Hans Dieter Gruenefeld, will be released on 24 November. The book marks the composer’s 70th birthday, and will be launched by CMC director Evonne Ferguson at a Salon Series event at the RIAM which will feature Corcoran’s work Trauerfelder performed by the RIAM Percussion Ensemble.
Two days later, a special event celebrating the composer’s work will be presented by The James Joyce Centre in collaboration with the Association of Irish Composers. Titled Frank Corcoran, James Joyce, and the Poetics of Myth: A Celebration of Frank Corcoran at 70, the event brings together presentations, analysis, interviews and music, exploring the connections between Corcoran and the work of James Joyce.
Barra O’Seaghda will introduce the life and work of the composer, while Benjamin Dwyer will give a talk titled ‘Joycean Aesthetics, Ethnic Memory and Mythopoetic Imagination in the Music of Frank Corcoran’ (based on an article published earlier this year in Colony Literary Magazine), and will present a live interview with the composer.
Following these presentations, cellist Martin Johnson, violist Adele Johnston and violinist Alan Smale will perform a short concert of Corcoran’s music, including the world premieres of new works Rhapsodietta Joyceana and Seven Miniatures
The concert takes place on 26 November at 8pm, at the James Joyce Centre on North Great George’s St.
Programme
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)
Athena Media awarded two new BAI documentary projects
Wed 01 Jul 2015 by Athena Media
In the latest round of BAI funding, Athena Media had two successful projects, a one hour TV documentary “How to Win” presented by David Gillick for Setanta Ireland and Cross Currents, a music documentary series presented by Barry McGovern for RTÉ lyric.
Cross Currents is a landmark three-part music documentary series, narrated by award-winning actor Barry McGovern, exploring Irish composers’ work from 1975 to 1985. This defining epoch sees Irish composition flourish as young Irish composers look to Europe to re-imagine an Irish identity in music, paralleling many of the societal and economic shifts in post-de Valera Ireland.
Both How to Win and Cross Currents will air from Spring 2016 and enter development in July 2015.
– See more at: http://www.athenamedia.ie/news-details.jsp?id_news=323#sthash.1xB5igEU.dpuf
What’s it like to be Frank Corcoran?
Frank Corcoran
1. How and when did you get interested in composing?
A seven year old lad: my first piano-lesson with kindly Sister Francis at Borrisokane Convent. I wanted to re-compose sections of The Rosebud Waltz. I was then studying intensively — and intensely.
2. Is composing your ‘day job’ or do you do something else as well?
I am a music professor at Hamburg’s Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Theater (‘day-job’). However, when the Cúchulainn warp-spasms get me with a new composition, I work day and night also at that.
3. Where do you mostly get your ideas?
Triggers of the past: poor Mad Sweeney (turned biography and breakfast — of cress and pure, cold water — into art); a poem (Rosenstock, John Barth, medieval Irish lyrics, etc.); a scaffolding (rondo as rosary-beads, etc.); an obscure form (e.g. exploding tonal shell or mine, etc.); out of the living air…
4. What are you working on at the moment?
Tradurre-Tradire: electro-acoustic with many voices, commission of Deutschland Radio Berlin for 2 July 2004 premiere. Hope to begin a strange new work for orchestra straight after that. Obscure longings…
5. Describe your typical working day.
As with Brahms and other Viennese, the best ideas come very early, by first light; are worked and whittled and soldered at any available hour of the not long enough day.
back to top
6. What is it like hearing a new piece played for the first time?
My Platonic Form becomes Sounding Flesh. No (even excellent) performance ever is that form. But it is my sounding embodiment of it. Like so many other (I do hope) composers, I must also respect good musicians’ wishes: a nuance here, a wood-wind phrasing there. The past greats were always humble about having occasionally to watch the weight of their orchestration. Me too…
7. What has been the highlight of your career so far?
The premiere in Vienna (luminous 1981) of my Symphonies of Symphonies of Wind (O.R.F. Symphony Orchestra — glorious wind-sounds! — conducted by Lothar Zagrosek).
8. What has been the lowlight of your career so far?
When the then RTÉ Symphony Orchestra (it wasn’t their fault; the repeat performance was great!) premiered my Two Meditations on [texts by] John Barth in, I think, 1973-ish in the Francis Xavier Hall, Dublin. My work for speaker and orchestra sounded (Oh technology!) as a work for orchestra without speaker. Next time, I was on the alert.
9. What is your greatest ambition?
To keep the courage up; moral, artistic courage. To go out on the edge. With new work in different genres, e.g. my present, new Tradurre-Tradire, ‘How to translate her scream’.
10. Which musician in history do you most admire and why?
Of the many candidates, today it’s Schubert. In his death-year, he knew how he would syphilitically end. He continued to the last to produce high masterpieces, music of the highest order and, I’ll say it again, courage.
back to top
11. Which present-day musician do you most admire and why?
Ligeti, my former colleague at Hamburg, is still living. Late Boulez: works, e.g. Sur Incises, continue to stretch him and us. Lutoslawsky up to the end, a high heroism.
12. Which period of history would you most like to have lived in and why?
I’ll stay put in today. In spite of the most vicious neo-con anti-art winds known to man.
13. What is the best thing about being a composer?
I can’t let up till a new work, being born, gives me relief from the creative, itching obsession.
14. What is the worst thing about being a composer?
My fellow-Irish have not yet (will they?) accepted music as an art on a par with Irish literature, Irish painting, etc. I include fellow Irish artists — especially my Aosdána colleagues — intellectuals, cultural philosophers, pub-poets and princes, powerful potentates. Is this fear of Irish art-music, Irish composers, genetic? Education-induced? Very strange for a ‘European’ nation. Very.
15. If you weren’t a composer, what other career might you have chosen?
A thinker, tinker, philosopher, theological traveller.
back to top
16. What is your concept of heaven?
Please email Dante…
17. What is your concept of hell?
Please email Richard Perle and other U.S. neo-con think-tankers.
18. What is your favourite food?
Cannelloni cooked in any village in Umbria, Lazio or Chianti. Also well-composed Irish Stew (where’ll I get it?).
19. If someone gave you three months off with unlimited travel and living expenses, what would you do?
Month 1: Skellig Rock, composer´s camp for one. Month 2: An Umbrian village I’m keeping nameless, cannelloni, and accompaniments to lave the soul’s ear. Month 3: Mount Athos with paper and pencil (shouldn’t be too hot or waterless).
20. If you could have one thing in the world that would really help you as a composer, what would it be?
Change places — for a pleasant while — with eighteenth-century Joseph Haydn. I, too, would enjoy his Duke’s orchestral generosity.