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For Immediate Release

The Contemporary Music Centre announces winners of West Cork Chamber Music Festival / Cork County Council Young Composers Bursary Scheme 2013

19 April 2013

The winners of this year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival / Cork County Council Young Composers Bursary Scheme 2013 have been announced, as follows: Seán Doherty, Retreat; Solfa Carlile, Fables; Timothy Cape, Collectors Item and Patrick Egan, Then Til Now. The selected works will be premiered at the 2013 West Cork Chamber Music Festival, which runs from Friday 28 June to Saturday 6 July, as well as being presented at the Festival's Young Composers Forum, directed by Ian Wilson, on Saturday 29 June. The composer of each selected composition will be awarded a Cork County Council Bursary of €500.

Seán Doherty (b. 1987) played the fiddle music of his native Derry and Donegal before reading music at St John's College, University of Cambridge, and completing his PhD at Trinity College, University of Dublin, where he now lectures in counterpoint and Baroque music history. Solfa Carlile (b.1995) is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, London. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate at Oxford with support from the Arts Council and the Seary Trust. Her music has received performances by the BBC Singers, Okeanos, Chroma Ensemble and the Orchestra of St. Paul's Covent Garden, of which she is composer-in-residence. Timothy Cape (b. 1991) is currently studying at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London; originally from Donegal, Cape is a composer whose influences range from Progressive Rock, Jazz, and Contemporary music to Literature, Theatre and Dance. Patrick Egan (b. 1987) completed his undergraduate studies in composition at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in 2012 and has since continued at the Conservatory, now working towards his Master's degree.

The West Cork Chamber Music Festival in partnership with the Contemporary Music Centre has held a competition for young Irish composers for the last four years. Each year, works for chamber ensembles have been selected to be performed in concert during the Festival and as part of the Festival's public workshop programme. The competition has been a valuable opportunity for young composers to work with professional performers, to receive guidance from a leading composer and to hear their works performed.

To mark Ireland's presidency of the Council of the European Union, the 2013 West Cork Chamber Music Young Composers Bursary Awards is expanded through special programme support from the Arts Council and Cork County Council under the Cultural Programme of the EU Presidency, with additional support from IMRO. The scheme is organised in partnership with the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland, Music Information Centre, Austria, the Arts Office of Cork County Council and CIT Cork School of Music.

Young composers were invited to submit a new work of 5 -- 8 minutes in length scored for string quartet, and based or derived from one of more of the melodies collected by Edward Bunting. The 240th anniversary of the birth of Edward Bunting takes place in 2013 and the Festival is marking this anniversary through the Bursary Scheme. Bunting is arguably the most significant of the early collectors of Irish music who, through his attendance at the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 and other collecting tours, assembled the primary collection of ancient Irish harp music.

The Contemporary Music Centre is Ireland's national archive and resource centre for new music. The Centre is supported by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

For further information contact Karen Hennessy, Promotion Manager, The Contemporary Music Centre, 19 Fishamble Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 8. Tel: 01-673 1922 or email: khennessy@cmc.ie, web site: www.cmc.ie

Notes for Editors

Workshop on Writing for String Quartet
This year, in addition to the Bursary Award the Festival offered young composers the opportunity to submit an extract of a quartet-in-progress for consideration at a workshop which was led by composer Deirdre Gribbin and the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet in CIT Cork School of Music on Friday 8 February 2013. The young composers selected for this prestigious workshop were: Sinéad Finegan; Galen Mac Caba; Seán Doherty; David Collier; Hollas Longton and Darragh Kearns-Hayes. The workshop was an important opportunity for the selected composers to address technical issues of writing for string quartet through hearing the work-in-progress played by a professional string quartet, and young composer Seán Doherty went on to become one of the winners of the 2013 Cork County Council Bursaries.

Seán Doherty -- (b.1987)
Seán Doherty (b. 1987) played the fiddle music of his native Derry and Donegal before reading music at St John's College, University of Cambridge, and completing his PhD at Trinity College, University of Dublin, where he now lectures in counterpoint and Baroque music history. His research interests focus on seventeenth-century music theory, and, in particular, that of the Irish theorist William Bathe (1564--1614). His compositions have garnered many awards, including the Jerome Hynes composition competition, the Feis Ceoil choral composition competition, the St Giles' Cathedral composition competition, and the Choir and Organ Magazine composition competition. In 2012 he was commissioned, by the Legacy Trust UK for the Cultural Olympiad, to write his first opera with the author Carlo Gébler. In 2013 he was commissioned, by the Culture Company for Derry/Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013, to write a second opera with the same librettist. His choral piece based on texts attributed to St Colmcille, commissioned by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, will be premiered later this year by the chamber choir Codetta. For more information, please visit www.seandohertymusic.co.uk

Solfa Carlile -- (b. 1995)
Solfa is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, London. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate at Oxford with support from the Arts Council and the Seary Trust. She was mentored by Sir Harrison Birtwistle at Dartington, and has received awards from the London Chamber Orchestra and the Irish National Concert Hall. She received the Jerome Hynes Commission Award by the National Concert Hall in 2010 and is the current winner of the Seán O'Riada competition. Her music has received performances by the BBC Singers, Okeanos, Chroma Ensemble and the Orchestra of St. Paul's Covent Garden, of which she is composer-in-residence.

Timothy Cape -- (b. 1991)
Born in Donegal, Ireland and currently studying at TrinityLaban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London; Timothy Cape is a composer whose influences range from Progressive Rock, Jazz, and Contemporary music to Literature, Theatre and Dance. He has created performances and installations in the Southbank Centre, Bonnie Bird Theatre, and Blackheath halls - where he was awarded the Daryl Runswick Composition Prize in 2011 for his piece "Feeble Beat Machine" for Tenor Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra. Recently his music has developed a theatrical edge, blending text, gesture and lighting to create musical experiences inspired by the work of Samuel Beckett, George Aphergis, Thierry de Mey and Robert Ashley. He is looking forward to performances of his work in Blackheath Halls in May, and PureGold Music Festival and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in June, is inspired by Irish artists such as Andrew Hamilton, David Fennessy, Ed Bennett and the Crash Ensemble, and is excited about the prospects of the new music scene in Ireland. He also enjoys Surfing, Hillwalking and Ice Cream.

Patrick Egan -- (b. 1987)
Patrick Egan completed his undergraduate studies in composition at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in 2012 and has since continued at the Conservatory, now working towards his Master's degree. He completed his undergraduate studies in composition at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama last year and has since continued at the Conservatory, now working towards his Master's degree. In May 2012, the Dublin String Quartet premiered his work, These Young Gears, at a DIT Composers' Society Concert.