Wexford-based composer Sue Furlong has recently been awarded a very different type of music commission.

She has been invited to write a suite of forty Irish language songs for primary school, which has been given the title D’Aon Ghuth (‘One voice’).

This songbook has been specially commissioned in response to the demand from primary teachers for age-appropriate Irish language songs for use in primary school and is a very practical way to introduce the works of contemporary composers into the classroom. The completed commission will take the form of two songbooks each containing twenty songs in Irish, one for infants to second class and the other for third to sixth class pupils.

Each songbook will also contain teaching notes based on the strands of the revised primary curriculum, ideas for creative music making and a CD recording of the songs (featuring the Young Wexford Singers, Director Eanna McKenna).

Songbook 1 will be available in November 2004 and Songbook 2 will be available in November 2005.

D’Aon Ghuth is funded by Wexford County Council and Foras na Gaeilge and is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Further information: Rosaleen Molloy, Wexford County Arts Officer. Email Rosaleen.Molloy@wexfordcoco.ie