Unique Clonmel music festival Finding a Voice puts the focus on women composers

Programme details for the third edition of Finding a Voice, which takes place in various venues around Clonmel, have been announced.

At the programme launch, which took place at the Contemporary Music Centre in Temple Bar, Artistic Director of the festival, Róisín Maher, said –  “For the third iteration of Finding a Voice in 2020, the concert series will again focus on the music of women composers through the ages, building and expanding on the first two highly successful series in 2018 and 2019.”

Evonne Ferguson, Director of the Contemporary Music Centre said: “Increasing the awareness of contemporary music as an art form and raising the profile of those active in the creation and performance of new work across the island of Ireland and internationally is a strategic aim for CMC.

“Diversity has always been at the heart of CMC’s work in promoting contemporary music from Ireland, and CMC is delighted to support the Finding A Voice Concert Series. In 2020, the third year of Finding a Voice Concert Series, CMC looks forward to three days of unique musical experiences exploring the hidden histories of music by women composers from across the centuries and across the globe in historic venues in Clonmel.”

In 2020, Finding a Voice will focus on broadening the genres covered in the previous two years, to include traditional Irish music and jazz, in addition to music from the seventeenth century to the present day.

Already in the past two years, Finding a Voice has programmed music by more than 50 women composers, arrangers, and musicians, and this number is set to grow again in 2020. Once again, the music of several Irish women composers will be featured, including Joan Trimble, Ailís Ní Ríain, Siobhán Cleary, Edel Sullivan, Anne-Marie O’Farrell, and a new commission from Gráinne Mulvey.

As the only concert series of its kind in Ireland or the United Kingdom, Finding a Voice offers a unique opportunity to hear music making of the highest quality by sometimes neglected women composers.

Finding a Voice 2020 takes place from Friday March 6 to Sunday March 8.

Anne-Marie O’Farrell is a harpist and composer who will be performing on 8th March and who is also judging the composition competition and mentoring the winning composer. Speaking at the launch, she said: 'I'm honoured to be involved both as composer and player in the annual Finding a Voice festival in March 2020. It's such a valuable occasion to shine a spotlight on recent harp works which now take their place in the canon of repertoire for this very colourful instrument. Fostering emerging composers with mentorship and a workshop is also an important part of facilitating new repertoire as composers develop the specialised skill of writing for harp. I'm so looking forward to seeing what they will come up with!”

Grainne Mulvey is an Irish composer who is writing a new work for pianist Isabelle O’Connell to premiere in Finding a Voice 2020. Speaking at the launch, she said: “I’m so delighted to be getting a piece played by Isabelle and that it’s a premiere - she’s such a fantastic performer and I feel really very lucky and privileged that the piece will be featured in the Finding a Voice Festival! The piece is for piano and electronics and it will commemorate the bi-centenary of the birth of the eminent scientist, John Tyndall, who was born in 1820 in Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow, where I live.”