Young Irish composer Paul McGuire wins international composition competition

Mon 11 Mar 2013
Paul McGuire Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire – an Irish composer who was last year awarded the Arts Council-funded Elizabeth Maconchy Fellowship to fund his PhD studies with Jennifer Walshe and Christopher Fox at London's Brunel University – has won an international composition competition for a work for 8-12 piece guitar ensemble.

The piece will be performed by the OSG, Open Source Guitars, ensemble at the Municipal Gallery of Villingen-Schwennigen in Germany at an exhibition of the work of Stuttgart artist Pablo Wendel. McGuire's work is called Marshes and is written for 6 electric guitars, 6 acoustic guitars and 2 acoustic basses.

The composition was run by the Villingen-Schwenningen Municipal Gallery, with adjudicators from Trossingen University of Music, Ensemble SurPlus from Freiburg and OSG's project manager, who chose Paul McGuire's piece unanimously because of the 'radical nature of his compositional ideas and their careful craft and consistent implementation in the musical texture of his microtonal scale, point to a distinctive artistic independence.'

Born in Dublin, Paul McGuire studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he specialised in composition under Donnacha Dennehy. He attended Bang on a Can’s 2011 Summer Music Festival where he worked with David Lang, Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon. His works have been performed by various ensembles such as The ConTempo String Quartet and The Node Ensemble.