Irish Success at Darmstadt

This article was originally published in New Music News, September 2000.

THE Dublin-born composer Jennifer Walshe (26) has won a major prize at this year's session of the prestigious Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music. Walshe was one of four participants chosen from 260 to share the DM10,000 Kranichsteiner Music Award for 'extraordinary achievements in the subjects of interpretation and composition by young upcoming artists'. She also receives a commission for a work to be premiered at the 2002 summer course to which she is invited to return as a member of the faculty.

Walshe's As mo cheann ('Out of my head') for violin and voice made a strong impression on the Darmstadt jury at one of the course's numerous studio concerts featuring student works played by student performers. Three of the jury's composers invited Walshe for lunch so that, as she says herself, she could be 'grilled', particularly concerning her notational technique. Satisfied but reluctant to award the prize to what might potentially prove to be a 'onework wonder', the jury requested other scores. Walshe handed over her portfolio. Once their first impression was confirmed, the jury made the award to her together with composers Valerio Sannicandro (Italy) and Sebastian Claren (Germany), and Taiwanese percussionist Wen-Ting Chen.

The prize commission is well resourced. Winners' works are performed by leading professional groups ranging from small chamber ensembles up to full symphony orchestra. Although the 1998 commission was given its premiere this year by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Walshe would prefer to write for a small new music ensemble.

Walshe says her music belongs more to a culture than to a compositional tradition. Commercial radio and the songs her grandmother sang are all part of the mix, as well as the music she encountered in her third-level studies (at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama). She is currently in the fourth year of a doctoral degree at Northwestern University in Chicago where, with the assistance of funding from the Arts Council, she is studying with Amnon Wolman. Studying and living abroad has meant that Jennifer Walshe's music has yet to be performed much in Ireland. However, 2001 will see the premieres of works commissioned by the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble and by RTÉ as part of her prize as runnerup in the Composer Class of the RTÉ Musician of the Future Competition 2000.

Walshe attended the July summer course -- running since 1946 -- on the recommendation of Kevin Volans and with the assistance of funding from the Cultural Relations Committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Together with composers Gerard Power and Fergal Dowling, she was one of three Irish participants this year. The eleven composers on the faculty included Hans Zender, Salvatore Sciarrino, Rebecca Saunders and Toshio Hosokawa. The intensive two-week programme included 38 concerts, meaning usually two, but often as many as four, concerts per day. Among the performers were the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Arditti String Quartet and Klangforum Wien.

Michael Dungan