The contemporary chamber ensemble, Concorde, celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary on 26 November last with a concert in the Dublin Civic Offices.

Without Concorde, such opportunities in Ireland would have been greatly restricted. A look through the computer databases in the Contemporary Music Centre's library puts some context on the history of the group.

Forty new works have been commissioned by Concorde -- one or two every year of the group's existence, and of those, 32 are by Irish composers. This is by a very long way the greatest number of new Irish works commissioned by any single group or individual during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries -- at least four times more than any of the other regular commissioning groups -- and in most cases these commissions were made possible by funding from the Arts Council.

The list of Concorde's commissions reads like a 'Who's who' of Irish contemporary composition. Several composers have been commissioned more than once, and at key points in their creative development. Many of the big names of today were given the opportunity to write for Concorde when they were just starting out. Such is the reputation of Concorde that a commission is a vote of confidence for a young composer and often opens doors further up their career ladder.

Most importantly, Concorde rarely gives just the first performance of a new work -- pieces go into repertoire and there are almost always second, third and subsequent performances, building a valuable relationship between performers, composer and audience. The members of the group give up a lot of their so-called 'spare' time, time away from busy lives as performers and teachers, to ensure that this relationship is a solid ongoing, established one.

Apart from their own commissions, the list of other works Concorde has performed covers the whole span of twentieth-century music, from the first concert in 1976 with a programme of Copland, Sessions, Gershwin and Barber among others, through programmes of Stravinsky, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Berg, Eliot Carter, George Crumb, and in more recent years, exchanges with composers and ensembles which have seen Concorde travelling to eight other European countries and the USA and inviting fellow performers and composers back to Ireland to play here. The consistency and quality of all this activity has built a very loyal audience. They don't ask what's being played: if it's Concorde, they'll come to the concert. If Concorde feel it's worth playing, then they know it will be worth listening to.

Concorde's artistic director, composer Jane O'Leary is, in her typically low-key way, an unstoppable force. Her enthusiasm, dedication, organisational ability and enormous knowledge of contemporary music have drawn together the leading performing musicians and composers of the day, and all this in the cracks of her own work, and her own real personal focus, as a composer.