CMC Christmas Message 2021
Nick Roth, saxophone, Lina Andonovska, flute and Colm O'Hara, trombone at the first CMC Courtyard Sessions - a musical response to Bloomsday, hosted by CMC in association with the Embassy of Ireland, Hungary, June 2021.
As the CMC team reflects on 2021, we think of the continuing challenges for artists across the year - the lockdowns, the cancellations, the postponements and the lack of the live audience in the room. But we also remember the numerous inspirational moments of music making in 2021 – the joyous return of audiences to performances, music in the open air, engagement with new music online, and we celebrate the resilience, the resourcefulness and the reimagining of ways to create and perform new music from Ireland.
CMC is grateful to the very many people who helped us to deliver our core services to the new music community throughout another unusual year. CMC has continued to provide library, archive and score copying services, both in person and remotely, along with the ongoing promotion of CMC’s catalogue. In recent months we have launched a successful online booking service to enable safe in-person visits to the CMC Library.
Our heartfelt thanks to all the artists, mentors, experts and organisations with whom we collaborated and partnered across 2021 as we continued to support artists active in new music in Ireland and to engage audiences with their music, including:
- all the performers and composers who took part in our many performance and discussion events throughout the year - St Brigid’s Day, Musical Tales, Courtyard Sessions, Culture Night with Kirkos and the CMC Colleagues, Penderecki Tribute in partnership with our Polish IAMIC colleagues Polmic,
- all the artists and arts organisations who contributed to the CMC podcast amplify across the year,
- all the composers and performers whose scores and audio excerpts were featured in the Through the Digital Door online feature, and in our Library Ireland Week feature,
- all the participant composers in Choral Sketches, our partnership with Chamber Choir Ireland. To reach the choral workshop in November was a very special moment.
- all the CMC Colleagues who collaborated creatively across 2021 as part of the CMC Contemporary Artist Network,
- all the CMC represented composers who mentored emerging and early career composers in our partnership with the CMC Ensemble in residence, Kirkos,
- all the Kirkos team, you have been an inspiring CMC Ensemble in Residence throughout 2020 and 2021,
- all the artists who have chaired and who have attended the fortnightly CMC Coffee Catch-Up across 2021, we have valued engaging with you directly,
- all the artists and presenters who participated in NMDX 2021, CMC’s networking initiative in partnership with New Music Dublin.
Choral Sketches workshop, November 2021 - CMC and Chamber Choir Ireland partnership.
CMC offers our sincere thanks to all the audiences who have engaged with new music from Ireland through CMC’s many performances, discussions, features and through the amplify podcast and our social media channels.
Photo from the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble concert in October at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, a concert of Polish and Irish music presented in partnership with CMC, the Polish Composers Union/POLMIC and the Polish Embassy in Dublin
In 2021 CMC continued many of our international activities including the transfer of the office of the International Association of Music Information Centres (IAMIC) to CMC from our colleagues in the Greek Music Information Centre, with Anna Murray as the new IAMIC administrator. This role will develop new international partnership projects, leading to increased opportunities for musicians and promoters from Ireland. We continue our partnership Composer Residencies at CCI Paris and ICON Arts, Romania while developing global audiences for new music from Ireland as an associate member of the International Society for Contemporary Music, and through partnerships with a number of Irish Embassies.
In December this year, CMC was delighted to announce the associate representation of composers, Darragh Kelly and the late Sue Furlong. Sue & Darragh have made considerable contributions to new music on the island of Ireland, it is CMC's great honour to represent both composers, and to document and disseminate their works as part of the CMC collection.
To the outgoing participants on the CMC Emerging composer programme, Áine Mallon and Ultan O’Brien, it has been a pleasure to support your development as composers across these two very unusual years of the pandemic. We welcome our two new emerging composers, Aoife Kavanagh and Paul Scully and look forward to supporting the development of your careers across 2022.
CMC acknowledges the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. CMC is also grateful to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for its ongoing support through the Project Lottery funding.
On behalf of myself as Director of CMC and the CMC board - and in this most challenging of years - I pay particular tribute to the CMC staff team, Jonathan, Keith, Linda and Mary and welcome the newest members of our team Annemarie Hughes, CMC Library Co-ordinator and Meabh Noonan CMC’s Communications and Marketing Co-ordinator, along with Micheal Lydon who joins us as the STF/CMC Research Associate across 2022.
From all of us here at CMC’s historic base on Fishamble Street in the Cultural Quarter of Dublin, best wishes for a peaceful holiday season and a bright new year for new music from Ireland.
Evonne Ferguson, Director
Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland