Irish Composition Summer School 2023

Irish Composition Summer School 2023 announcement - The 40th Irish Composition Summer School will run at the Irish Institute of Music and Song, Balbriggan, County Dublin, Ireland, from July 10th to 18th.

Prospective participants should be composers at the early stages of their career, and students taking composition and considering it as a career.

Course Directors: Garrett Sholdice and Martin O’Leary
Guest Director: Jane O’Leary
Performers/instruments: Deirdre O’Leary--clarinets, Dermot Dunne--accordion and Richard O’Donnell--percussion
Technology director: Ian Brabazon
Admin: John McLachlan

Sponsored by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon
Supported by IMRO—the Irish Music Rights Organisation

We will offer a full day timetable that allows for composing time: the weekdays feature group seminars (mostly mornings) and individual tutorials (afternoons). Days are 9.30 to 5 Irish time (UTC / GMT).

The school offers a range of lectures, presentations and demonstrations on all aspects of contemporary composition, focusing on writing for any combination of the available forces with optional electronic fixed media. The school offers advice on writing for the instruments, and on all aspects of contemporary art music composition. There is considerable one to one guidance on your piece as you write it, therefore we welcome composers at any stage of their development.
At the end of the course, the students' works will be presented in workshop, rehearsed and digitally recorded by the performers. Throughout the course, students will receive guidance from experienced course directors and nationally and internationally renowned composers. This year, the ICSS is delighted to welcome Jane O’Leary as Guest Director, who will present seminars on her own work, as well as giving individual tutorials to all students.
Due to the limited duration of the course students are expected to come with some sketches/ideas prepared.

The course involves a great deal of individual tuition and so is suitable for a range of students at various levels of experience.

The course involves a combination of one-to-one tutorials with the participating composers, and group seminars. These will cover the major aspects of contemporary composition such as harmony, rhythm, formal structure and instrumental writing.

The Fee for attending the course is EU380, which does not include accommodation.

You are free to arrange your own accommodation, on or off campus. Some places on the IIMS campus have been kept free for attendees IIMS (see www.irishinstituteofmusic.com), see details in pdf.

All information can be found here or requested from johnrmclachlan@gmail.com

Please see attached pdf icss_info_2023.pdf