Composer Seóirse Bodley celebrates his 80th birthday this April

A special Sundays@Noon concert at Hugh Lane this month will celebrate the life and work of composer Seóirse Bodley, who turns 80 this month. The concert will see performances of a number of his vocal works, and will mark the launch of a new book titled A Community of the Imagination: Seóirse Bodley's Goethe Settings.

Seóirse Bodley studied in both Ireland and Germany, and is currently Emeritus Professor in the music department of University College Dublin. He was conferred with the Aosdána's highest distinction of Saoi in 2008. The concert at Hugh Lane will feature two settings of Goethe poetry: the first being the 2004 work Mignon and the Harper, to be performed by Sylvia O'Brien (soprano), Owen Gilhooly (baritone), and David Adams (piano). The second will be Gretchen, a song cycle written in 2012 for a conference on Goethe's Faust that uses settings from the German work, performed again by Sylvia O'Brien, who also premiered the work, along with Imelda Drumm (mezzo-soprano), David Adams (piano) and a choral ensemble conducted by Ruaidhrai Ó'Dalaigh.

The concert, which is supported by the German Embassy, takes place on Sunday, 28 April 2013 at 12pm at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. Dr Lorraine Bodley Byrne's book A Community of the Imagination: Seóirse Bodley's Goethe Settings is joint-funded by the National University of Ireland Maynooth and by the National University of Ireland, and will by published by Carysfort Press.

View an extract from a conversation between Benjamin Dwyer and Seóirse Bodley, recorded during April 2013:

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