Annual List of Works : Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland

~1M

Title
chOirland

Composer
David Fennessy (1976, Irish, c/o Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland)

Genre
choral

Instrumentation
satb, slapstick

Year of composition
2002

Duration
4 minutes

Place of premiere performance
St Iberius Church, Wexford, Ireland

Date of premiere performance
2003-09-26

Performers
National Chamber Choir, conductor Celso Antunes.

Score
Publisher
Unpublished, available from the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland
URL: http://www.cmc.ie
E-mail: info@cmc.ie
Price: €11.00

Recording
Record company
Not commercially available, reference copies held in the Contemporary Music Centre, details above

Programme note

Whack!
High di di di diddle di
High de diddle di dero
Toora loora laddy
Diddledi durn di di

All the words in chOirland are nonsense lyrics taken from the choruses of traditional Irish songs and ballads. I didn't grow up singing these songs and traditional music was never a big part of my musical life. In fact, it seems the only time I ever hear them now is when I'm in Irish bars here in Britain or in Irish gift shops where, almost inaudibly, they gently prod at me, sometimes resulting in an impromptu jig or reel or my standing on a chair and reciting the great speeches of Wolfe Tone.

I kind of like my Irish badge, though - all leafy, greeny, plasticy - and play along with its tomfoolery more than I probably ought to. But, like an old friend who I take for granted, I'm sometimes mean to it and make fun of it - to be sure, to be sure.

Composer Biography

David Fennessy was born in Maynooth, Co Kildare. He began his musical studies at the DIT Conservatory of Music, studying guitar with John Feeley and composition with Eibhlis Farrell. He gained a BMus in performance from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1997 and an MMus in composition with James MacMillan at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2000.

His works have been performed by the National Chamber Choir, the Castagneri and Zephyr Quartets, Synchronia and Concorde, among others. He received many commissions, including those from RTÉ Lyric FM, Music Network, the Paragon Ensemble, Concorde, and the Dundee Guitar Festival.

Awards include first prize in the 1998 New Music for Sligo Composers’ Competition for his work, ‘Nightpiece’. In 2000 his first string quartet, ‘graft’, was shortlisted for the Gaudeamus Music Week prize while his choral work ’Aimhreidh’ was recorded by the National Chamber Choir and released on the Black Box Label.

David Fennessy is currently a composition lecturer at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.