McKenna theatre followed by a promenade

production of song, art, dance and performance

through the Arts Millennium Building, Psycholo-

gy Building and adjacent outdoor venues with

the NUI Galway Staff Singers, NUI Galway Dra-

ma and Performance Studies students and staff,

NUI Galway Arts Office and sculptor James

Flemming.

From Europe with Love

Tuesday 3 September saw the return of From

Europe with Love, our three-year lunchtime

concert project exploring the shared musical

heritage of the European Union. This past au-

tumn ConTempo Quartet performed repertoire

from Germany, Spain, Bulgaria and Sweden.

Our guest speakers for the latest set of concerts

included Dottie Knauer, a German national living

in Galway for over 30 years; La Rioja native Ju-

dith Alutiz of the Galway Cultural Institute; Am-

bassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of

Bulgaria to Ireland Gergana Karadjova and Swe-

dish-born author, playwright and translator Ann

Henning Jocelyn.

GMR was delighted to partner with Caprice Café

on this series to offer our patrons discounts on

post-concert meals.

Performance Season Launch

On August 26th we launched our 2019/2020

Programme of Events featuring 30 events

across Galway city and county with ensem-

ble-in-residence, ConTempo Quartet. This is

our first ever full-year programme with the

schedule of events running from September

2019 to June 2020. Contained in the pro-

gramme are our well-established series such

as Lunchtimes with ConTempo and 3 Kinds

of Music along with exciting new partner-

ships with Youth Ballet West and Cuirt Inter-

national Festival of Literature.

The programme launch coincided with the

launch of the Galway Music Residency’s new

logo and our revamped website.

This launch event was kindly sponsored by

Rúibín Bar & Restaurant on the Docks and

the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Dub-

lin.

Culture Night

On Friday 20 September, ConTempo Quar-

tet kicked off the day with a Culture Night

trail to workers in Parkmore Business Park.

Starting at EA with the sounds of John Wil-

liams’ Star Wars and moving on to Merit

Medical and finally SAP, this trail brought a

light reprieve through this coffee break mu-

sical trail.

GMR continued its Culture Night wanderings

with a lunchtime culture trail in conjunction

with NUI Galway, our long term Education

partner. The theme for this years’ lunchtime

culture trail was ‘movement’ and began

with ConTempo performing in the Siobhan

July-December 2017

July—December 2017

July—December 2019

Galway Music Residency Six Month Activity Report

Galway City Arts Officer James Harrold, GMR General Manager Maeve Bryne, Connacht Tribune Arts Editor Judy Murphy and GMR’s Artistic Chair John Caulfield at the launch of GMR’s 2019/20 season in Ruibin

RIGHT: ConTempo Quartet perform in the atrium at SAP

Page 1

Music & Musings The Galway Music Residency presented its

autumn 2019 series of Music & Musings in

partnership with the Contemporary Music

Centre which was held in the intimate sur-

rounds of The Black Gate in Galway City.

Beginning on Thursday 26th September,

composer Seán Doherty shared his piece

The Devil’s Dream. This work was paired

with excerpts from Smetana’s String Quartet

No. 1 From My Life. Discussions about the

works, the performance and everything in

between were led by Linda O'Shea Farren of

the Contemporary Music Centre with audi-

ence participation. The second concert in

the series on Thursday 14th November fea-

tured veteran Irish composer Marian In-

goldsby with her work Struck by a

Raindrop, which was first premiered in 1999

by the Jupiter String Quartet. Struck by a

Raindrop was paired by excerpts from

Britten’s String Quartet no. 3, and a lively

discussion ensued chaired by John Caulfield,

Chair of GMR’s Artistic Committee. Finally,

on Thursday 5th December, ConTempo

Quartet performed the world premiere of

Ed Bennett’s new work West Coast Sci-fi

Blues Trance for string Quartet which was

commissioned by the Galway Music Resi-

dency and Galway City Council Arts Office as

part of a three-year commissioning initia-

tive.

ConTempo Countywide Continuing our commitment to bringing

performances to rural centres, ConTempo

Quartet travelled to three communities

throughout the county over the last six

months: An Spidéal in July for Traidphicnic;

Portumna in September for the Shorelines

Arts Festival, and Campbell’s Tavern in

Headford in collaboration with Headford

Music Works in December for a fabulous

Christmas concert with their young perform-

ers.

This spring we’re visiting Kylemore Abbey,

Athenry and Oughterard !

3 Kinds of Music: Christ-mas Special GMR’s cross-genre series 3 Kinds of Mu-

sic was back in The Mick Lally Theatre on 14

December for a special Christmas edition

with curator Matthew Berrill employing the

talents of Cork musicians John Blek (singer/

songwriter) and Ciara O’Leary Fitzpatrick

(concertina) performing alongside the Con-

Tempo Quartet. GMR’s Artistic Committee

Chair John Caulfield joined the musicians to

sing some festive favourites to close out the

show (pictured below).

Join us again on Saturday 29 February at

11am for the first 3 Kinds of Music concert

in our spring series featuring jazz duo Cor-

mac McCarthy & Matthew Berrill and Gerge-

ly Kuklis (violin) & Ramin Haghjoo (piano)

duo, with special guest Gilles Dupuoy on

ocarina.

Silent Shorts Following on from the extremely successful

screenings of Nosferatu and The General in

2017 and 2018 respectively, GMR, together

with the Huston School of Film & Digital

Media & the O’Donoghue Centre for Drama,

Theatre and Performance, presented anoth-

er unique film event on the evening of Tues-

day 8 October 2019 at the O’Donoghue

theatre! ConTempo Quartet performed live

scores for the screening of three classic

shorts: Buster Keaton’s comedies One Week

(1920) and The Haunted House (1921),

along with Charlie Chaplin’s romance, The

Immigrant (1917).

GMIT Christmas Concert

The partnership with education partner

GMIT kicked off on 6 December with a pop-

up Christmas concert in the new library in

the Centre for Creative Arts and Media.

ConTempo is delighted to bring classical

music to the campus, exposing students in

the creative arts to classical music. We are

in consultation with GMIT’s cinematography

and documentary departments, to hatch

some collaborative projects with the quartet

in the spring and autumn terms of 2020.

This fruitful partnership will continue into

the 2020/21 academic year.

Page 2

An audience in The Black Gate for Music & Musings with Ed Bennett

ConTempo Quartet Perform alongside Buster Keaton in the O’Donoghue Thea-tre.

ConTempo in the library at the Centre for Creative Arts and Media, GMIT

Education

Apprentice Programme The Apprentice Programme is rooted in

GMR’s commitment to community and edu-

cation projects and provides advanced in-

strumental students and young profession-

als an opportunity to further their experi-

ence of ensemble playing. This year we

have a trio of trios, one senior ensemble and

two junior ensembles.

Dina Ryan, James Middleton, and Marcella

Barz formed the Zephyr Clarinet Trio at the

Technological University of Dublin while

studying with Dr Paul Roe. All three mem-

bers are multi-clarinettists and have ar-

ranged a variety of music for clarinet trio.

Marcella moved to Ireland to specialize on

the bass clarinet and is now working on her

Doctor of Music at TU Dublin and Dina and

James graduated from the Bachelor of Mu-

sic Performance degree in 2019 at TU Dub-

lin.

Junior Ensemble Burren Con Brio is made up

of three siblings, Shónagh (violin), Mia

(viola) & Euan (cello) who study with Coole

Music in Gort. All are members of Coole

Music’s Sonic Strings & Youth Orchestra and

Shónagh also plays with the Symphonic

Waves orchestra project for Galway 2020.

Shónagh and Mia regularly help with young-

er orchestras in Coole music. Euan is also a

member of the Voldemort String Quartet.

RFM Trio is a Junior Ensemble comprised of

three good friends: Rachel Kelly (violin),

Fionna McKree (violin) and Mark Kelly

(cello). The trio travel several times a week

to Athenry Music School for individual les-

sons and orchestra rehearsals and after

initially meeting in the school’s Creation

Orchestra in September 2018 the RFM Trio

was created and they meet regularly under

the mentorship of director Katharine Mac

Mághnuis.

Sym-phonic Waves

ConTempo continued to provide sectionals

and orchestral rehearsals to the orchestra

through the winter of 2019/20 and will as-

sist them further in the spring with a full day

of rehearsals on 8 March, to help prepare

this new orchestra to play with the RTE Con-

cert Orchestra in June 2020.

Junior Cert Workshop

On Tuesday 26 November GMR presented a

workshop for Junior Cert students from Gal-

way comprising 70 students from 5 schools,

in Dominican College, Taylors Hill. ConTempo,

along with music teacher and GMR board

member Marie Kerrigan worked through sev-

eral pieces of music which touch on musical

features which will be examined in June, with

a special performance of ‘Bohemian Rhapso-

dy’ at the end!

Due to the success of this workshop, it will be

repeated in Tuam on Tuesday February 25,

2020 for up to 100 students from 6 schools.

NUI Galway BA in Music

GMR with ConTempo Quartet has thoroughly

enjoyed working with the 1st and 2nd year

students of the BA in music, now into its sec-

ond year of existence. With Dr Aidan Thom-

son, director of the programme, ConTempo

have provided regular in-classroom work-

shops bringing students’ scores to life and

discussing the intricacies of music history,

theory and composition. We are delighted to

continue this collaboration into the academic

year 2020/2021.On Saturday 28 March 2020,

GMR team up again with Dr Aidan Thompson,

the director, BA in Music, for a taster work-

shop during NUI Galway’s Open Day. ConTem-

po will give perform for prospective students

following a talk from Dr Thompson.

MA in Writing

Continuing its long-standing partnership with

the MA in Writing at NUI Galway, ConTempo

treated the students to a wonderful perfor-

mance of a Brahms quartet to discuss the

theme of romance, during a workshop in No-

vember exploring the links between music

and literature. The collaboration will continue

this coming academic year.

MSc in Information Systems Manage-

ment

Our new website which was launched in Au-

gust was built by students from the MSc in

Information Systems Management. Thanks

Rose, Martin, Subhodeep, Lakhya

& Hemant!

Page 3

The Zephyr Clarinet Trio

RFM Trio

Burren Con Brio

Listen, Learn, Love Music...

News New Beginnings

This autumn saw the arrival of baby Rowan

to GMR Manager, Maeve Bryan. Maeve is

thrilled and enjoying her baby son who has

attended several concerts to date! In the

meantime, GMR has welcomed Anne McCa-

be on board as Acting Manager to manage

the residency during Maeve’s maternity

leave. Anne’s background is in television

and theatre but she is thoroughly enjoying

her exposure to the wonderful musical tal-

ents of the ConTempo quartet and their

busy schedule!

GMR announces new Com-mission In 2017, the Galway Music Residency, in

association with the Contemporary Music

Centre, launched a new concert series enti-

tled Music & Musings. This series aims to

present Galway audiences with new music of

the highest quality, (from Ireland and from

the contemporary canon internationally) in

an informal yet intimate setting, promoting

discussion with musicians, composers and

audience members.

Together with the Galway City Arts Office,

GMR has now commissioned three new

works for string quartet, all premiered during

our Music & Musing series.

On December 5th 2019 it was announced by

Galway City Arts Officer James Harrold that

Dave Flynn was the successful applicant for

the third commission in this series. Flynn’s

new work will be heard in late November

2020 as part of the autumn season.

Board Members

Keith Warnock (Chair)

Peter Allen

Sally Coyle

Linda O’Shea Farren

Marie Kerrigan

Patrick Lonergan

Jane O’Leary

Sara Stewart

Michael Cuddy

Sinead Hayes

Galway Music Residency

Staff

Anne McCabe,

Acting General Man-

ager

Julie Seagrave

Administration

Assistant

Galway ConTempo Quartet

Bogdan Sofei, violin I

Ingrid Nicola, violin II

Andreea Banciu, viola

Adrian Mantu, cello

We are proudly supported by:

T: +353 91 586706 E: in-

fo:@thegalwaymusicresidency.ie

www.thegalwaymusicresidency.ie

Anne McCabe introducing CTQ in St. Nicholas Collegiate Church

Page 4

Our Media Partner is:

Composers Dave Flynn and Ed Bennett

Help us make music Everyone should have the right to listen to, learn about and love music. This simple belief is the driving force of the Galway Music Residency. We pro-vide opportunities for people of Galway City and County to experience music in new and unexpected ways, to learn from inspiring musicians and spark joy in their lives. We can’t do this alone.

Our family of Friends play a key role in

making our work possible. Becoming a

Friend of GMR empowers and enables

us to give the gift of music to more chil-

dren, more adults and more communi-

ties in and around Galway.

To learn about our Friends programme-

julie@thegalwaymusicresidency.ie

Or call us on 091 586706.