For full details & to buy tickets, please click here: https://eastsidearts.ticketsolve.com/shows/873625171 Since it took its first tentative steps in 1999, The West Ocean String Quartet has received world-wide acclaim, garnering rave reviews and lauds from Ireland, America, Japan, Australia and Europe. Within the quartet, the worlds of traditional and classical music meet and fuse effortlessly,…
WARM BLUE SKY This is a paean to Cruit Island, a small island off the north-west corner of Ireland that I believe to be my spiritual home. I first visited west county Donegal as a child on family holidays in the 1960s, and then specifically Cruit Island with my own family for the last three…
My eldest daughter, Maebh, studied at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and must have left a fair impression, as the Director of Music, Michael Downes, asked me to write something for herself and orchestra to mark the opening there of The Laidlaw Music Centre. The premiere was scheduled for the autumn of 2020.…
The West Ocean String Quartet is beyond delighted to share with you that on Sunday 25th October we will give a livestreamed concert from the NCH in Dublin, part of the Tradition Now weekend. Oh to be making music again. More details to follow over the next few days…. https://link.dice.fm/qrXfQTPocab Tickets for the stream are available exclusively via DICE.fm Tickets: €10.…
A busy, challenging and rewarding St Patrick’s Weekend lies ahead – on Saturday in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, The Gloaming’s Iarla Ó Lionáird accompanied by the Ulster Orchestra under David Brophy will sing a few sections from Sweeney, a setting for solo traditional singer, narrator and orchestra of Seamus Heaney’s Sweeney Astray that I…
May you all be well as another year closes. I enjoy reflecting on the previous twelve months at this stage – a reminder, a breather. 2018 has been a year of extremes – of great rewards and great loss. It started with the RTE commission to set Seamus Heaney’s “Sweeney Astray” for singer Iarla Ó…
The following is an article that appeared in the Irish Times on Thursday, March 15, 2018: ‘I was always mindful that this is a song cycle,’ says composer Neil Martin of adapting Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Sweeney’s Astray’ for song The mythical 7th-century tale of a wandering bird man, suffering from what might now be diagnosed…
Upcoming concert – St Patrick’s Day, March 17th 2018, 8.00pm National Concert Hall, Dublin Iarla Ó Lionáird, Stephen Rea, David Brophy, RTÉ Concert Orchestra The world premiere of Sweeney, an orchestral song cycle based on Seamus Heaney’s Sweeney Astray, featuring singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and narrator Stephen Rea. Also on the programme is Ossa, a choral…
Upcoming concert – St Patrick’s Day, March 17th 2018, 8.00pm National Concert Hall, Dublin Iarla Ó Lionáird, Stephen Rea, David Brophy, RTÉ Concert Orchestra The world premiere of Sweeney, an orchestral song cycle based on Seamus Heaney’s Sweeney Astray, featuring singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and narrator Stephen Rea. Also on the programme is Ossa, a choral…
Six world premieres in twelve months: four orchestral, one dance, one words and music. It’s been a busy year & I’ve gotten to collaborate with truly outstanding artists along the way. It all began with Jean Butler & myself opening our duet this is an Irish dance to a sell-out run in Danspace, NYC last…
