Peter Moran and Neil O'Connor have been accepted for representation at the Contemporary Music Centre.

Peter Moran is currently completing his PhD in Composition at York, where he has tutored in composition and contemporary music. His compositions draw on his experience in many different styles of music. Table-ism, for piano and flute, was premiered at the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival in Tuscany, Italy. Other works have been performed by Sounds Underground in London and the Royal Irish Academy of Music Percussion Ensemble, conducted by Richard O’Donnell. He has also featured in the York Spring Festival and the Sight Sonic Festival. Commissions include the music-theatre piece Three Short Stories, written for the 2006 Final Recitals at the University of York, and the soundtrack to the independent film Team Talk.

His current research interest is in microtonality and the combination of different tuning systems. He has recently established the Microtonal Fayre, a bi-annual series of conference days on microtones and tuning, to promote the music of composers working in this field. The event took place on Wednesday 2 May as part of the 2007 York Spring Festival. It included some of the latest research and premieres of microtonal music, with presentations by musicians and lecturers from Greece, Georgia, America, England, Scotland and Ireland. The proceedings of the event will be published online.

Neil O'Connor is currently studying for PhD in Composition with Donnacha Dennehy at Trinity College Dublin. Beginning his career as a filmmaker, he has been involved in a diverse range of musical activities including folk, jazz, rock, electronic and electro-acoustic music that has recorded and performed in Europe and America. His work was been performed at the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival, Anthology Film Archives New York City, Fringe Festival Dublin, Vox Novus’s 60 X 60 New York City, Miso Music Festival Portugal, and at ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and Zentrale – Randlage, Berlin, Germany.

Neil O'Connor is currently working with composers George Higgs and Linda Buckley to put together a concert of new music for piano and tape. He was recently awarded the Varese Award for ambient music from the South Tipperary Arts Centre for his tape piece Radio Aurora, and is currently writing a piece for the "Bang on a Can" festival in Boston in July. A CD of his work, Fuzzing Away to a Whisper, has been released on the Thief label.

Posted: 18 May 2007