The West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival and the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland announce Timothy Doyle as winner of the 2024 Composition Competition for Emerging Composers (violin and piano)
Following an open competition process, the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival (WWF) and CMC are delighted to announce the winner of the 2024 Composition Competition for Emerging Composers (violin and piano).
Timothy Doyle is a composer of chamber, orchestral and electronic music. Born in Dublin, he first studied music at the Newpark Music Centre where he earned an honours degree in Jazz Performance. Timothy then moved to New York in 2013 where he worked with some of the city’s most exciting performers and improvisers before returning to Ireland and commencing his graduate studies in composition at University College Cork. He currently resides in Lyon, France.
Tim's work has been performed and premiered by some of Ireland's best musicians and ensembles including, amongst others, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, Chamber Choir Ireland, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble and the ConTempo Quartet. His work has also received numerous awards including the NCH Jerome Hynes Young Composers’ Award (2020), the Peter Rosser Composition Award (2017) and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition Prize (2019 & 2023).
Timothy Doyle describes his winning work, 'Skim':
'Skim' consists of two short vignettes inspired by my memory of skimming stones out on the Blessington lake as a kid. The piece opens with the violin playing melodic lines that unfurl in concentric motions before arriving at a note that repeats and recedes like a ripple. This gesture is mirrored and refracted in the upper register of the piano. In the second half of the piece, the violin plays a fluttering drone that creates a surface tension over which the piano skims its own stones.
On the announcement of the competition winner, Martina Rosaria O’Connell, West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival, Head of Education said:
The West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival is delighted to partner once again with the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland (CMC) for the 2024 Composition Competition for Emerging Composers. This initiative serves as an important platform for emerging composers of any age to showcase their compositional voice on a national stage and receive feedback from an esteemed panel. We were particularly impressed by the high standard of entries this year, reflecting the uniqueness and vibrancy of composing in Ireland at the moment.
We are thrilled to announce that the winning entry from this year’s call is 'Skim' for violin and piano, composed by Timothy Doyle. Inspired by the composer’s childhood memories of skimming stones across Blessington Lake, this work will be premiered at the festival on Saturday, 16th November 2024, at 12 PM, performed by South Korean violinist Jisun Min and Latvian pianist Didzis Kalniņš at The Manor House, Tulfarris, which overlooks the very lake that inspired the piece.
The West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival remains dedicated to supporting music education in Ireland. Our partnership with the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland, is one of great importance and pride, and we look forward to continuing our successful collaboration with the CMC in the future.
Evonne Ferguson, Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland, Director:
CMC and the West Wicklow Festival have partnered for a number of years on the emerging composer composition competition, and we’re always thrilled to see the calibre of work being created by emerging artists across Ireland. We warmly congratulate Timothy Doyle, a recent alumni of CMC and Chamber Choir Ireland’s Choral Sketches professional development programme, on this latest creative achievement.
Rising Stars Jisun Min and Didzis Kalniņš who premiere Timothy Doyle’s piece 'Skim' on 16 November at the West Wicklow Festival Winter Weekend.
The Rising Stars concert will include a ‘Composer’s Voice’ interview with Timothy Doyle in conversation with CMC's Garrett Sholdice, offering an insight into Timothy's practice and the development of the winning work. To find out more and book tickets for the Rising Stars concert, visit the West Wicklow Festival website here.