A wide range of national and international commissions have been received by Irish composers this year. They include a new work commissioned from Ed Bennett by the UK-based amateur music organization, COMA, for performance in London in September 2004. Bennett is also working on a piece for Sheffield Chamber Orchestra to be premiered in Sheffield University in November 2004. This was commissioned as part of the PRSF/SPNM’s ‘Adopt a Composer’ scheme.

Fergal Carroll has been commissioned to write a work for the Band of HM The Royal Marines for performance in the Royal Northern College of Music on 26 March 2004. The Cork Jazz Festival has commissioned Ronan Guilfoyle to write an extended 30- to 50-minute work for alto and tenor sax, guitar, violin, trombone, bass and drums for performance at the 2004 festival in October. Guilfoyle is also working on a commission for the Callino String Quartet plus saxophone, guitar, percussion and bass for the Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, for performance in December 2004.

Ben Dwyer has received a joint commission from Music Network and Lyric FM to write a new piece for guitar for Craig Ogden, for performance on his Music Network tour of Ireland in November (see A New Commissioning Model?). Dwyer has also received one of the ReJoyce Dublin 2004 joint commissions from the Contemporary Music Centre, Temple Bar Outdoors and the Association of Irish Composers to write a work for flute and percussion for June 2004 (see ReJoyce Dublin 2004.)

Michael McGlynn’s new work, Aurora, for string orchestra, harp, woodwind and tuned percussion has been commissioned by Euterpe and the Finnish Film Orchestra and will be premiered in Helsinki Cathedral later this year. McGlynn is also working on a choral piece for Maple Grove Senior High School Choir and a Mass for St David’s Cathedral in Wales, to be performed in May 2004.

Siobhán Cleary’s Suantraí, a five-minute piano work written for Maria McGarry and commissioned by Sligo County Council, is to be premiered in the Model Arts and Niland Gallery, and the same composer’s Morphine will be performed by the Crash Ensemble at the RTÉ Living Music Festival in February. Ian Wilson’s Arbres d'Alignement will be premiered at the same festival by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Also in February, Wilson’s Eigenschatten for violin and tape will be performed by Catherine Leonard at Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery, and Games for baritone and piano will be performed at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, by Jeremy Huw Williams.

Looking further ahead to next year, the BBC has commissioned Gerald Barry to write a twenty-minute orchestral work for performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Arturo Tamayo in the Barbican Concert Hall, London, in September 2005. Barry is also writing a piano work, Miss O’Murphy’s Foot for this year’s Cheltenham Festival in July.

Details of the premieres of all new commissions will be posted as soon as they are received in the Calendar.