58K

For Immediate Release

Contemporary Music Centre Soundscapes Book Launch

27 September 2005

Soundscapes Volume I will be launched as part of an open evening for teachers in the Contemporary Music Centre on 6 October 2005. The evening will also include a presentation on the work of The Contemporary Music Centre and resources available to second and third-level students and teachers.

Soundscapes: The Prescribed Works, Group A – A Coursebook for Leaving Certificate Music by Arthur Sealy with foreword by Harry White, Professor of Music, UCD, will be officially launched by Ben Murray, Alexandra College. Refreshments will be served and all are welcome.

Soundscapes is the first in a series of course books dealing with the prescribed works and other aspects of the Leaving Certificate music syllabus. It is published by Waltons Publishing, Dublin.

This first volume covers Gerald Barry’s Piano Quartet No. 1 as one among four works in Group A of the syllabus. Author Arthur Sealy discusses Barry’s work while providing a thorough 20th-century contextualization and a biography of the composer.

References are made to reviews, articles and interviews with the composer, and the ‘Beyond the Exam’ section includes a recommended bibliography.

Arthur Sealy sees this as a means “to encourage students to explore the world of contemporary music, if not now, then at some point in the future.”

Soundscapes Volume II, which deals with Raymond Deane’s work, Seachanges (with Danse Macabre), is scheduled to appear in Spring 2006.

The book retails at 14.95 in all good book and music shops.