Michael will be an Eminent Scholar of Florida Atlantic University for the calendar year 2011-2012. The position will involve three visits to the Music Department of the college, where he will workshop his own music and in 2012 the College will present a specially commissioned work. ______________________________________________________________________ Côr Cymru 2011 Sunday, 10 April : Despite being so close to us, and having a reputation for producing some of the finest singers in the world, there is little musical interaction between Wales and Ireland. Thankfully that may be about to change just a little. Côr Cymru 2011, the hugely successful S4C choral biennial competition featured two pieces by Michael McGlynn as part of the programme of two different choirs. Both choirs were conducted by Islwyn Evans, who was also awarded the prize for the competition’s best conductor. He conducted three of the five choirs who competed in the final. The S4C website appears to block non-UK sites, but for those of you located there you can view the competition here for a limited time. The winning group Cywair sang a Welsh-language version of "The Wild Song", while Ysgol Gerdd Ceredigion featured Michael's "Dúlamán" as part of their semi-final repertoire and made it to the final round. ______________________________________________________________________ Like waiting for a bus which you wait for for ages and ages and then two come along together, Michael's "O Vos Omnes" gets not one but two premieres this Spring. The U.K. premiere was given by Trinity College of Music Chamber Choir (conductor Stephen Jackson) at the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, London on March 11th. On April 20th 2011 the piece, written in 1995, receives its first Irish performance by New Dublin Voices (conductor Bernie Sherlock) at Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. Michael writes : "O Vos Omnes was originally written in twelve parts in 1989 for the BBC Singers. Myself and four other Irish composers were each asked to create a new piece for this excellent choir, conducted by John Poole. I worked on the piece for around three months. While the whole thing was, in principle, a wonderful idea, it was not a pleasant experience.For some mysterious reason The Singers hadn't prepared the piece, and were actually reading the material for the first time during the sessions, part of that year's Cork Choral Festival. Each piece was workshopped and then sung through...well, except mine. I was last on the list and unfortunately the early works were allowed to run over time. Out of a two hour session I got eight minutes, comprising of a single sight-read through with stops. To be honest, the experience was so upsetting I very nearly stopped writing music but I was heartened that the BBC Singers themselves actually thought the piece was great and had some very innovative and original writing. They didn't understand why the music had not been prepared in advance for the session. Ah well... life is full of mysteries. Since then I have had similar experiences, but thankfully less over the years. This one, bad as it was at the time, taught me that out of such things, good or bad, we learn and develop as writers and, more crucially, as people. There were many teething problems with O Vos Omnes. The central section was muddy and far too homophonic, with difficult cluster chords inserted for no good artistic reason. I reworked it for Anúna's Omnis album as Tenebrae III in 1995, slimming it to ten parts and changing the central section. Its quite an early work, and very obviously influenced by Ligeti, with multiple canonic figures running throughout the piece. I'm delighted that it is getting an airing, as it is an attractive choral work, particularly as part as the Tenebrae Collection of pieces, and I am particularly happy that the excellent New Dublin Voices will be giving it a first Irish premiere." Tickets for the Dublin performance are available here. ______________________________________________________________________ You can listen to Michael's forthright views about the Irish choral music and education system, presented as part of the Singing Together radio programme, from the RTÉ Lyric FM Website here. ______________________________________________________________________ The Ulster Orchestra will perform "The Great Wood" and "The Rising of the Sun" for the BBC Invitaion Concerts in Belfast's Ulster Hall and Derry's Guildhall this January 13th and 14th 2011. Details available from here. ______________________________________________________________________ Michael's arrangement of "Jerusalem" features in the new TV production of "The Pillars of the Earth", a huge mini-series created by US company Stars. ______________________________________________________________________ A second 2010 doctoral thesis [see Resources] on the choral work of Michael McGlynn have been made available publicly online for download and consultation. Dr. Karen Marrolli's dissertation at the University of Louisiana entitled "An Overview of the Choral Music of Michael McGlynn with a Conductor’s Preparatory Guide to His Celtic Mass" is available to read from here. ______________________________________________________________________ Michael's recent appearance on Finnish X Factor, as specialist mentor for Linda Lampenius, is now available online to enjoy...
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______________________________________________________________________ On July 30th, Michael's music was again the focus of a major performance given at Dublin's National Concert Hall by The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Linda Lampenius (violin) and ANÚNA. Featured in the programme were some new arrangements of orchestral music including The Last Rose for Strings, Choir and Violin solo (a nine minute exploration of Thomas Moore's beautiful songs) and Carolan's Farewell to Music for Symphony Orchestra and Violin solo. These, and other orchestral scores are now available from the Sheet Music Store. ______________________________________________________________________ The Frost Chorale at the University of Miami under the steady hand of Dr. Stacie Rossow premiered Michael's "My Songs Shall Rise" recently. You can purchase the score and her an extended excerpt of the performance from the Sheet Music Store ______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________ "Agnus Dei" features on the album The Best of Chanticleer. It is available to purchase from here. Michael's "Agnus Dei" from Chanticleer's "And on Earth, Peace - a Chanticleer Mass" was featured in their programme In Time Of... Songs of Love & Loss, War & Peace. This beautiful programme featured works by Palestrina, Dufay, Janequin, Legeti, Chen Yi, Sametz, McGlynn, Bates, Gershwin and others. Performances were be in Obispo, Carmel, Santa Clara, Napa, Walnut Creek, Sacramento and San Francisco throughout 2009. See details of dates here. You can alos hear the programme twice next March at the SF Conservatory of Music. ______________________________________________________________________ RTÉ Lyric FM broadcast the July 2009 recording of Anúna performing with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra as follows : Wednesday October 14th 11am Wednesday October 21st 11am ______________________________________________________________________ A copy of Dr. Stacie Rossow's Doctoral dissertation at the University of Miami, Florida has been made available to download from their site in PDF format here. ""The Choral Music of Irish Composer Michael McGlynn" is a detailed and varied exploration of Michael's music and theories. ______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________ The Arts Show on Ireland's main radio channel RTÉ Radio One broadcast an interview with Michael on Tuesday 14th of July. Michael discusses many aspects of his work and there are extracts from the latest Anúna album SANCTUS. Listen here. ______________________________________________________________________
The Contemporary Music Centre of Ireland featured Michael as Composer of the Month for July 2009, and there is a YouTube video available to see of an interview given with him last in Dublin about that month's show with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra that month. On the same page is a podcast of audio interviews from the same session. You can read about the performance here on the CMC site, and here on Michael's blog.
Incantations, written by Michael in the same key as his old moped, is in the news at the moment. It won the CMC Trophy at the Cork Choral Festival for PfizerPfonics [read the story here]. Michael has posted a special Blog on his Wordpress site here discussing the forthcoming concert of his music at the National Concert Hall on July 17th featuring the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and Anúna. He discusses some of the music in the concert including "Twilight" and "The Coming of Winter". It is only in recent years that Anúna's director/composer-in-residence Michael McGlynn has begun to have his works performed in Ireland by Irish choirs, despite many years of performances throughout the world. This year, at the Cork Choral Festival [Ireland's premiere choral festival] two of Michael's works won awards for Irish choirs.The awards were Trofaí Cuimhneacháin Philib Ui Laoghaire [awarded to Clermont Chorale, Dundalk, Co. Louth for An Oíche] and The Perpetual Trophy for the Performance of Irish Contemporary Choral Music [awarded to PfizerPfonics for the performance of Geantraí]. Michael writes "I am delighted that these two works have won awards for Irish choirs. The Cork Choral Festival is Ireland's most important choral festival, and it is fitting that choirs are rewarded for performances of contemporary Irish work. However, there is a lack of performable pieces by Irish composers in the choral repertoire - and while I am flattered by the increasing inclusion of my work in the repertoire, I am not heartened by the lack of works being performed by my composer colleagues. It is time that the Cork Choral Festival and the Arts Council of Ireland address the need for the creation of repertoire that is performable by amateur choirs, rather than concentrating on commissioning works that usually get one performance, and then no more. Visiting choirs are always looking for new music, and what better shop-window for Irish composition than this Festival". A new recording of "Jerusalem", arranged by Michael, will appear in episode 10 of the new season of The Tudors, and on BBC4 TV the piece "Sanctus" is being used for How to Build a Cathedral. Ronan O Sullivan, the Irish film-maker, has posted his evocative English/Irish Language ghost-story An Tiaracht to YouTube. It features a score of Michael's music, including "1901" "Ceann Dubh Dílis" and "Victimae". Thanks to the wonders of YouTube here is the entire short film for you to view and comment on - well done Ronan! On April 5th 2008 Anúna recorded material for a new project in St Peter's Church, Drogheda. The resulting album, as yet untitled, will feature Michael's "Agnus Dei", Allegri's "Miserere" and Lotti's eight voice "Crucifixus" among other tracks. The album will be released in Ireland in 2008 and in 2009 in the USA.
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