Tráthnóna Beag Aibreáin

Á chur i láthair ag

Ensemble Ceol Oirghialla

Institiúid Teicneolaíochta Dhún Dealgan

Caisleán Bhiorra

Domhnach 28ú Aibreáin 2013, 18.30

Music at Birr

Birr Castle is renowned for its telescope and the contribution of the

Parsons family to science, especially astronomy, engineering and

photography. The gardens at Birr Castle are also famous for the unique

collection of rare plants, trees and flowers, many collected in exotic

places such as Chile, Tibet, and Mongolia by members of the Parsons

family. What is not so well known, even by musicians, is the close

family connection of the Parsons family with Georg Frederic Handel

and the family’s involvement with Handel’s visit to Dublin in 1742. Sir

William Parsons was a close friend of Handel and was instrumental in

inviting him to Dublin. Such was their friendship that Handel presented

him with an engraved walking stick in appreciation of his friendship,

support and sponsorship which led to Handel’s visit to Ireland and the

first performance of the Messiah in Dublin in 1742.

Our concert programme derives from the rich and varied collection of

music which comprises the Birr Music Archive. The Archive presents

us with an historical record of contemporaneous musical tastes and of

the music patronised and preserved by the Parsons family from the early

18th century to the present day, ranging from the music of O’Carolan,

Handel, and Geminiani, all with Irish connections, to the popular music

and songs associated with more recent times.

In this evening’s performance we are recreating a typical

entertainment of music which would have been

performed in Birr Castle since the time of the great

harper Turlough O’Carolan. Also featuring in our

performance is the famous Egan Harp (c.1820) which

today graces the Music Room and on which you will

hear some of the Planxties made famous by O’Carolan.

Our concert includes a timely celebration of Springtime

with music inspired by seasonal themes.

Tonight’s performance will feature international student Ling Wei Chua

who will perform on the Pipa. The tear-drop shaped lute originally an

ancient Persian (modern day Iran) instrument, was introduced into China

through the Silk Road combining with ancient lutes that existed in China

since the Qin dynasty. The pipa was highly developed and flourished in

the Tang dynasty. In ancient days, for many dynasties in Chinese history,

the Pipa has always been a principal music instrument in the Chinese

court, performed mostly for royalty and high ranked ministers. Having an

important role in Chinese history, art, music and literature, today the Pipa

is one of the most representative of music instruments in the Chinese

music tradition. A modern Pipa has a tear-drop shaped wooden body,

four metal strings, a neck (with six frets) and tuning pegs made of ivory,

ox horn, jade or hard wood, the twenty-four frets below the neck are

made of bamboo. The Pipa is usually decorated with carvings of Chinese

mythical beasts (dragon, phoenix, Qilin) or flowers (lotus, peony, plum

blossoms, chrysanthemum) on a piece of ivory or jade.

Ceol Oirghialla Ensemble is delighted to present this recreation of past

music-making at Birr and to add to the musical memories of this

beautiful Music Room.

Amhrán na bFhiann

Sinne Fianna Fáil

A tá fé gheall ag Éirinn

buion dár slua

Thar toinn do ráinig chugainn

Fé mhóid bheith saor

Sean tír ár sinsir feasta

Ní fhagfar fé'n tiorán ná fé'n tráil

Anocht a théam sa bhearna bhaoil

Le gean ar Ghaeil chun báis nó saoil

Le guna screach fé lámhach na bpiléar

Seo libh canaídh Amhrán na bhFiann

Clár

Airdí Cuain Air

Lord Mayo March

Airs and Melodies Moore

Oriel Consort

O Quam Gloriosum de Victoria

Sicut Cervus Palestrina

Illumina Oculos Meos di Lasso

O Sacrum Convivium Messiaen

Ave Maria Farrell

My Bonny Lass she Smileth Morley

Now is the Month of Maying Morley

Lullaby Joel arr. Shaw

Sos

The Dragon Boat Race Zhang Bu-Chan

The Flying Eagles of the Mongolia Meadow

Hei Lian Chao,

Wang Chao Ran

Airs and Melodies Moore

Ceol Oirghialla Traditional Music Ensemble

Bishopswood March / The Blueberry Bush Keegan

Clár Bog Déil Trad.

The Yew Tree / The Gates of Mullagh Keegan

Sliabh Geal gCua Ó Mileadha

The Daisy Chain / The Fuschia Keegan

Around and About / The Thingemy Jig Keegan

Sir Laurence Parsons, 2nd Earl of Rosse,

the Salon, and the Egan Harp

By Richard Wood

This evening's concert takes place in the great gothic salon of

Birr Castle, and features the early nineteenth century Irish harp

made by John Egan of Dublin. The man responsible for the

creation of both this room and this harp was Sir Lawrence

Parsons who later inherited the Earldom of Rosse from his

uncle.

What lies behind both of these remarkable creations, and who

was Sir Lawrence?

His father, Sir William Parsons raised the Corp of Birr

Volunteers in 1776 when the regular troops were sent off to

fight the rebellion in the American colonies. Its banner is

preserved in the Castle. This Corp of volunteers were then put

to good political use and the threat of their strength together

with the oratory of Grattan Flood and other members of the

patriot party in Parliament achieved legislative independence

for Ireland in 1782. It is in that year that we first come across

Lawrence, as he entered Parliament at the climax of the

successful political campaign. He became a prominent

member of the patriot party, carrying on that tradition of the family which goes back to

the early seventeenth century.

He became a close friend of Flood and a lively correspondence took place between

them: Flood to Parsons, in 1784 about English statesmen ‘… because I will confess that

I have met with the most plebian ignorance as to Ireland in very high places…’; Parsons

to Flood, c.1788, ‘As to Grattan’s speech on tithes, it was the worst rhapsody I heard

from him...The clergy all foam against him… Parsons was described by a fellow

parliamentarian as ‘perhaps the most respectable man of that assembly for its last

twenty years,’ and Wolfe Tone said of him, he was ‘one of the very, very few honest

men in the Irish House of Commons’. As executor of Flood’s will he fought for the

foundation of a Chair of Irish at Trinity College, Dublin in accordance with his wishes.

Sir Lawrence’s home life, here at Birr, was happy and productive. He married Alice

Lloyd from the beautiful early eighteenth century Gloster just a few miles from the

Castle. Alice’s recipe books and other writings remain in the Castle’s archive, and

the present Countess of Rosse describes her as being ‘harassed and slightly

disorganised, but a wonderful party-giver whose plans would always turn out fun

and delicious in the end.’ She goes on, ‘Alice’s own hospitality followed the

tradition of the great ancient Irish Houses giving hospitality to all comers’. Fiddlers

were engaged to play quadrilles, and orders given for tables ‘with supper on them to

be brought into the drawing-room at one o’clock at night.’

Following the Act of Union of 1800, which he opposed, Sir Lawrence had to leave

all this gaiety and the happiness of his home for long periods to attend Parliament in

London. He wrote frequently to his beloved wife; 1805, Wolverhampton, ‘My

dearest life, I long to hear from you….’ And later, ‘Adieu, my ever dear and amiable

wife, I am just going to order a mutton chop, and make another solitary dinner.’

However ,there was some consolation; in 1807 he inherited the Earldom of Rosse.

He was engaged in a variety of building projects; the Mall and the splendid classical

terraces of Birr, John’s Hall (which he designed), both Birr churches (he laid the

foundation stone of the Catholic church), the General Post Office in Dublin are all

influenced by him to a greater or lesser extent. He embellished the Castle giving it a

new entrance to the North, and for his wife Alice he added the splendid salon to the

stout medieval structure of the Castle. Perhaps this celebrated his elevation to the

Earldom too. But perhaps most significantly for the future, he built the graceful

suspension bridge, the first in Ireland and one of the earliest in the world, which can

be seen from the salon’s windows. This was the first of the family’s great

scientific pioneering works, the Great Telescope, the moon-heat machine, and

the development of the propeller all following in subsequent

generations.

Sir Lawrence’s patriotism is evident throughout his career,

and the harp which he commissioned (when Earl of Rosse, as

we must now call him) is a further expression of it. He

commissioned it in 1821, the very year of the visit of George

IV to Ireland. No doubt both he and his Countess would

have taken part in many of the State and social events

surrounding the Royal visit, but it appears that the Earl’s

mind was centred on things of this nation. Perhaps he

remembered the magnanimous gift of the so-called Brian

Boru harp to Trinity College Dublin by William Burton

Conyngham, someone who would have been well known to

him from his parliamentary days in Dublin as both were of similar

patriotic and cultural outlook. That donation took place in 1782,

the very year the young Lawrence entered parliament, and it would

have caused a stir in cultivated circles and must have impressed the

young parliamentarian. It is no surprise, given Lawrence’s

nationalistic leanings, to find that he commissioned an Irish rather

than a concert harp, that it is coloured green, and is embellished

with shamrocks. It is, indeed a treasure from that constitutional

nationalistic period of Irish history—all too brief—which was

enriched by the influence of the classical world and by those first

stirrings of interest in Irish antiquities which resulted in the

foundation of the Royal Irish Academy and other learned societies

and which is epitomised by William Ashford’s great painting of visitors

exploring the ruins of Clough Oughter Castle in County Cavan, now at Fota.

Family tradition here at Birr tells us that the Earl’s daughters played this harp,

particularly Lady Jane Parsons. She married Arthur Knox of Sussex, and their son,

another Lawrence, founded The Irish Times in 1859 in order to support Isaac Butt’s

Home Rule party. Thus the family’s constitutional nationalism and liberal tradition

live on to this day, and we, this evening, can experience with intimacy an aspect of its

love for Ireland and its great cultural vision.

Richard Wood

Rathcrohan, Co. Cork, April 2013

Eibhlís Farrell is a composer member of Aosdána, the state-sponsored academy of

Irish artists. She is a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast, Bristol University and

Rutgers University, New Jersey and studied with Raymond Warren in England and

Charles Wuorinen in the United States. Her works have been widely performed and

broadcast and she has represented Ireland at the UNESCO sponsored International

Composers’ Rostrum. In 2011 she was honoured by Rutgers University with the

Distinguished Alumna Award for Distinguished Accomplishments and Service in the

Humanities in Music and Music Education. It cited her outstanding contribution to

music both as composer and educator and how in her work as composer she had served

to bring the rich traditions of Irish culture into the world of contemporary music. Dr

Farrell is Head of Music and Creative Media and Director of the Centre for Research in

Music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. Her work Gleann na Sídhe / The Fairy Glen

was commissioned for the Dublin International Piano Competition in 2012.

Musicologist Adèle Commins is Head of Music at DkIT. A graduate of NUI

Maynooth, in addition to playing piano, she is an accomplished piano accordion player

and soprano and is Musical Director of two local church choirs. Her primary research

interests lie in music in Ireland and England during the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries, with particular focus on the music of the British Musical Renaissance. Her

doctoral work examined the reception history of Charles Villiers Stanford and included

a detailed analysis of his forty-eight preludes for solo piano. She is a member of the

Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) Ireland committee and

Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer of the Council of Heads of Music in

Higher Education in Ireland.

David Stalling has worked as a composer, improviser, installation artist, and

conductor. He studied composition with John Buckley and Martin O’Leary at NUI

Maynooth. David has received numerous grants and commissions from the Arts

Council, FÁS Screentraining Ireland, and Culture Ireland. His work includes

instrumental and electroacoustic music for concert performance, dance and film, as

well as site specific and gallery based audiovisual installations. David is currently

musical director of the DkIT Choir and Chamber Orchestra and co-

director of the Oriel Consort. He is a former director of the Maynooth

Chamber Choir. He is a director of Hilltown New Music Festival and

the NUI Maynooth Guitar Ensemble. David is a member of Solus

experimental film collective. He maintains an ongoing collaboration

with artist Anthony Kelly. Together they create sonic and visual works

and run the sound art record label farpointrecordings.com. David is

represented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland.

Helen Lawlor is a lecturer in Irish music, ethnomusicology and music education at

Dundalk Institute of Technology. She graduated from UCD with a PhD in music in

2010. Her research on harping in Ireland focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first

centuries, encompassing issues of transmission, gender, identity and musical

styles. Her 2012 monograph is entitled Irish Harping 1900–2010 was published by

Four Courts Press. Helen plays both Irish and concert harp, specialising in traditional

Irish harp playing.

Ethnomusicologist, geographer and performer Daithí Kearney is a graduate of UCC

and a lecturer in Music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. His research is primarily

focused on Irish traditional music but extends to include performance studies,

community music, music education and the connection between music and place. He

teaches regularly with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, was Season Director with Siamsa

Tíre, The National Folk Theatre of Ireland in 2012 and has toured internationally as a

musician, singer and dancer including appearances at The National Folk Festival 2013

in Canberra, Australia.

Aisling Kenny is from Galway and lectures in musicology, analysis and vocal studies

at Dundalk Institute of Technology. She studied Music at NUI Maynooth where she

gained her PhD. A soprano, Aisling has studied voice with Regina Hanley, Mary

Brennan and with Aylish Kerrigan in Stuttgart and holds diplomas in voice and piano.

She performs frequently as a soloist in Ireland. Aisling was a member of Christ

Church Cathedral Choir, Dublin until 2012 and is a member of Resurgam Choir

directed by Mark Duley since 2007. Aisling has presented numerous lectures and

lecture-recitals on her primary research area, women and the nineteenth-century Lied

and in 2010, she organised the first major international conference in the field. Aisling

has also worked as a vocal coach, workshop facilitator, an examiner for the Royal

Irish Academy of Music and as a part-time lecturer in St Patrick's College,

Drumcondra.

Ling Wei Chua, from Malaysia, has been playing the Pipa for fifteen

years; during these years she had studied solo performance with

Malaysian and Singaporean professional Pipa tutors, as well as being a

performer and instrumental teacher in a number of Chinese traditional

orchestras and bands in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. Now as a

second year student in Dundalk Institute of Technology, she is

receiving classical violin tuition and learning Irish traditional music.

Her interest and love for music includes Chinese traditional music,

Irish traditional music, and folk music of different national and

regional forms.

Oriel Consort

The Oriel Consort is a new chamber choir at Dundalk Institute of

Technology, recently founded by lecturers, Aisling Kenny and

David Stalling. The Consort is made up of students and staff and

provides opportunities to perform exciting and challenging

repertoire at an advanced level with a particular focus on early

polyphony and contemporary music. They are delighted to be

giving their second public performance in tonight’s concert!

Sopranos Ling Wei Chua, Adèle Commins, Aisling Kenny, Roisin

Timoney

Altos Christina Lynn, Carrie McCarthy, Lauren Murphy

Tenors James Crehan, Michael Hyland, Kevin O'Brien, David Stalling

Bass Brendan Cleary, Kevin Cumiskey, David Flood, Adrian Lydon

Ceol Oirghialla Traditional Ensemble

Bringing together undergraduate and postgraduate students, the Ceol

Oirghialla Traditional Music Ensemble draws inspiration from a variety of

Irish traditional music groups, exploring possibilities of arrangement and

inspiration with respect for both tradition and possibility. The Traditional

Ensemble provides numerous opportunities for students to hone their

stagecraft and performance skills in diverse contexts. In partnership with the

Irish traditional music society at Dundalk Institute of Technology, the

Traditional Ensemble brings Irish traditional music to the heart of college life.

The Ensemble recently celebrated the music of local musician and composer,

Josephine Keegan. A fiddler player and TG4 Composer of the Year in 2005,

Josephine is well known for her performances with Seán Maguire and Joe

Burke. One of the most prominent female musicians of her generation, she

continues to perform and compose and is an inspiration for many of the

musicians of the region. Many of her compositions are inspired by and named

after the flowers of her garden and native countryside.

Ling Wei Chua, Adèle Commins, Martha Guiney, Daithí Kearney, Laura

Kenny, Helen Lawlor, Adrian Lydon, James McCreanor, Ciara Moley, Aine

Murphy, Rachel O’Brien, Sinéad O’Malley.

Music at DkIT

Ceol Oirghialla has a dynamic and vibrant approach to the study

of music and offers exciting and innovative programmes to both

undergraduates and postgraduates in a proactive centre of

teaching and learning, research and performance. We aim to

provide a distinctive and pioneering environment for advanced

study, performance and research while recognising and engaging

with the diversity of musics and technologies.

Taught programmes currently on offer include BA (Hons) Applied Music, BA

Music and Audio Production, MA/MSc Music Technology and MA/PGDip

Traditional Music Studies. Our programmes offer training in a range of music

specialisms and attract both Irish and international students. Our imaginative

undergraduate programme has facilitated students to progress to a diverse range

of careers including first and second level teaching, composition, performance,

music technology, arts administration and business management with many

students undertaking further postgraduate study.

Our BA (Hons) Applied Music is a four-year degree programme which

encompasses a blend of musicology, music technology, composition,

ethnomusicology and performance, and which balances the practical with the

theoretical. After being exposed to a rich and varied range of subjects in first

and second year, third and fourth year students have the opportunity to

specialize in one of the following areas: solo performance in classical,

contemporary, popular or traditional music, music education and community

music, music technology, ethnomusicology or composition. Performance is an

integral part, and students are given the opportunity to take part in various

music ensembles including music theatre/opera, guitar ensemble, rock/pop and

Irish traditional groups, choir and orchestra.

Our BA Music and Audio Production has been designed to strengthen students’

understanding and awareness of a wide range of aspects of Music Production.

Students will develop faculties of critical, technical and artistic judgment, both

in applying their own skills and knowledge, and in judging the physical and

intellectual products of others. There are opportunities for students to gain

valuable practical experience working with musicians in recording studio

environments which is paramount to learning and developing the necessary skill

-sets required of the modern music producer.

In addition to our undergraduate teaching, we have a large and vibrant

community of research students enrolled on our postgraduate programmes,

and the teaching on these courses is enhanced by the research expertise of our

staff. Our research activities cover a comprehensive range of areas including

practice-based research, performance and conducting studies, composition,

music technology, ethnomusicology, musicology and education and

community music studies. A range of research partnerships have been

developed, most significantly our involvement in An Foras Feasa research

partnership with NUI Maynooth, St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra and

Dublin City University, and, in collaboration with the Contemporary Music

Centre Dublin, DkIT is a lead partner in a major digitisation programme, the

Irish Composers Project. The firm establishment of Ionad Taighde Ceoil,

Centre for Research in Music, will ensure that our research activities will

continue to gain national and international recognition while also

underpinning the teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level. A

significant achievement was that the first two PhDs to graduate in the Institute

in 2009 were two music postgraduate students. In June 2012 we hosted the

Tenth Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland Conference

which attracted a large number of national and international delegates.

Students avail of a variety of performance opportunities at DkIT. Music

Theatre is one of the most popular activities and the provision of a fully

equipped dance studio and dedicated performance spaces has enhanced the

opportunities for dance choreography and creative movement. Recent

productions include The Yeomen of the Guard, La Belle Hélène, Evita, The

Gondoliers, and Ó Riada sa Gaiety which highlighted Ceol Oirghialla’s

ongoing commitment to the preservation of the rich cultural and historic

landscape of Oriel within which DkIT is situated, a region which has always

been a centre of a wealth of music and literary activity. Our successful

traditional music concerts have celebrated the music of notable musicians

including Michael Coleman, John Joe Gardiner and Josephine Keegan. At

Ceol Oirghialla we recognise the importance of giving students opportunities

to engage with professional musicians working in the music industry and for

this we host a regular guest lecture and masterclass series.

Recent student successes include Oscar Montague who won the Contemporary

Music Cup at Feis Ceoil and Thomas McConville who has had compositions

performed at a range of international venues and festivals. Our students have

been honoured by invitations from HE President McAleese to perform at Áras

an Uachtaráin, the Cambridge University Ireland Society to perform at

Cambridge University and at the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Malta in

2008 at the invitation of HE President Edward Fenech Adami. Other recent

performance venues have included the Ulster Hall, Belfast in a joint concert

with the South Ulster Youth Orchestra in a special performance of Gullion

Tales, a commissioned work by Brian Irvine. As part of our ongoing

community outreach commitment and enrichment of the cultural life of the

wide region, students and staff have performed choral concerts in St Joseph’s

Redemptorist Church, Dundalk, Church of the Holy Redeemer, Dundalk and

Newry Cathedral to packed audiences. DkIT is dedicated to becoming part of an international education network.

Through our partnerships with our sister-universities in Norway, Germany,

Italy and the UK, many of our students have taken the opportunity to spend a

semester abroad, while we have hosted students and staff from both Stord

Haugesund University and Telemark University for joint performances at

DkIT. Following the successful hosting at the Institute of an Erasmus Intensive

Programme involving partner institutions Stord Haugesund University College,

Norway and Artesis University College, Antwerp students and staff travelled to

Norway to participate in the second part of the programme in February 2013.

International visiting faculty this year have included Professors Jeremy Dibble

from Durham University, Ray James from Baker University in Kansas and

Pozzi Escot and Eden MacAdam-Somer from New England Conservatory. We

also welcomed Irish Youth Opera as our Opera Company in Residence.

Ceol Oirghialla has firmly established itself on the cultural map of third and

fourth-level education in Ireland. DkIT will continue to be a leading provider of

music education in Ireland and contribute to the preservation and promotion of

the rich cultural landscape of Oriel.

Adèle Commins

Ceannasaí Rannóg an Cheoil

Head of Section of Music

Rannóg an Cheoil

Ceannasaí, Roinn Ceoil agus Meán Cruthaitheach, Stiúrthóir, Ionad Taighde Ceoil

Head of Department of Music and Creative Media, Director, Centre for Research in Music

Eibhlís Farrell BMus (Hons) (QUB), MMus (Bristol), PhD (Rutgers), LLCM, FRSA,

Member of Aosdána

Ceannasaí Rannóg an Cheoil

Head of Section of Music

Adèle Commins BA (Hons) (NUIM), HDipEd (NUIM), ALCM, LGSMD

Dámh Ceoil

Music Faculty

Mark Clarke BEng (DCU), MSc (London), DipEE (DkIT), CEng (IEI)

Niall Coghlan MA (QUB)

Una Hunt BMus (Hons) (QUB), Konzertfach Diplom (Hochschüle Für Musik, Vienna),

PhD (NUIM), DMus (QUB honoris causa)

Daithí Kearney BA (Hons) (UCC), PhD (UCC), HDipEd (UCC)

Sean Keegan BMus (TCML), MA (UL)

Aisling Kenny BMus (Hons) (NUIM), PhD (NUIM), DipABRSM, ALCM

Helen Lawlor BMusEd (TCD), MMus (UCD), PhD (UCD)

Patrick McCaul BSc (QUB), MA (DkIT)

Paul McIntyre BMus (Hons) (TCML), PhD (UU), PGCHEP (UU), DipMus (OU), LTCL

Caitríona McEniry BA (Hons), MA (NUIM), MA (York), LRIAM, ARIAM *

Paul McGettrick BEd, BMus (Hons) (NUI), MSc (York)

Hilary Mullaney BA (Hons) (NUIM), MA (DIT)

Siubhán Ó Dubháin BMus (Hons) (QUB), MA (DkIT), PGCE (QUB), ALCM

Ciarán Rosney BA (Hons) (WIT), MA (DIT), MMus (DIT) *

David Stalling BA (Hons) (NUIM), MA (NUIM)

Rory Walsh BMus (Hons) (NUIM), MA (NUIM), HDip Mus Tech (NUIM)

Career Break *

Distinguished Visiting Faculty

Professor Jeremy Dibble, University of Durham

Professor Pozzi Escot, New England Conservatory

Professor Ray James, Baker University, Kansas

Professor Eden MacAdam-Somer, New England Conservatory

Cláracha Acadúla i Rannóg an Cheoil

BA (Hons) Applied Music

BA Music and Audio Production

MSc Music Technology

MA Music Technology

MA Traditional Music Studies

MA/MSc by Research

PhD by Research

Cairde Ceoil Oirghialla

If you would like to receive future invitations to our concerts and music theatre

productions please forward your email address/contact details to:

ann.coffey@dkit.ie

Tel: 042-9370280

For future events check out: http://music.dkit.ie

Dáta do do Dhialann

Musica Nova Week 29 April–3 May 2013

Programme

Daithí Kearney & Adèle Commins

All in an April Evening

Presented by

Ceol Oirghialla Ensemble

Dundalk Institute of Technology

Birr Castle

Sunday 28 April 2013, 18.30