Postponement of 15th July Public Workshop for Composer Lab 2020
Composer Lab is an annual professional development initiative for composers, which is presented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland (CMC) and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (RTÉ NSO) in association with RTÉ lyric fm. It provides composers who have had limited opportunities to write for symphony orchestra or large scale ensemble with a creative and open environment in which to deepen their understanding of writing for the forces of a symphony orchestra.
Applications for Composer Lab 2020, the fifth year of Composer Lab, were invited by 9 December 2019. Following an anonymous selection process, Rachael Lavelle, Adam McCartney, Seán Ó Dálaigh and Judith Ring were selected to participate in Composer Lab 2020 with composer mentor David Fennessy.
The selected composers receive mentoring from composer mentor David Fennessy throughout the duration of the project, which started with a one-to-one mentoring session in CMC with David Fennessy and conductor Gavin Maloney on 20 February 2020. As part of a series of workshops throughout this project, a public workshop was scheduled to take place on Wednesday, 15 July 2020. Due to restrictions as a result of Covid–19, this workshop has been postponed (to a date TBA).
Dates of Workshop and Broadcast to be announced
The rescheduled date of this workshop will be announced as soon as easing of Covid–19 restrictions in relation to performance-related gatherings permits. While an online workshop was considered, given the year-long duration of this project and its close collaborative nature, it was believed that a workshop similar to previous years should be facilitated, if possible, through postponement until Covid–19 restrictions in relation to performance-related gatherings have been eased.
It is planned that Composer Lab 2020 will culminate in a public performance of the composers’ works performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of conductor Gavin Maloney, in a radio and online broadcast in 2021 live from the RTÉ Radio Centre on RTÉ lyric fm’s Blue of the Night with Bernard Clarke. As with the workshop, the date of this broadcast will be announced closer to the time.
All involved are pleased that neither the Composer Lab 2020 public workshop nor the broadcast of the composers’ works will have to be cancelled, but rather can be rescheduled to fit in with social distancing guidelines in relation to performance-related gatherings as they develop while maintaining the essence of this unique professional development project for composers.