Cork International Choral Festival 2014

Chamber Choir Ireland returns to Cork for its annual residency at the 60th Cork International Choral Festival including:

• The 46^th Seminar on New Choral Music in the Stack Theatre, Cork School of Music on Friday 2 May at 2pm (Free event)

• A gala performance of When we were children in St Fin Barre's Cathedral on Friday 2 May at 7.30pm; and

• A workshop for composers in the Stack Theatre, Cork School of Music on Saturday 3 May at 10.00am.

The Gala Concert features the world premiere of a new commission by Irish composer David Fennessy: Letter to Michael, and the winning entry in the Seán Ó Riada Composition Competition which this year is Solomon Grundy by Donal MacErlaine. Following our world premiere performance of David Lang's When we were children in April 2014, we hold this piece as the centerpiece theme of the programme in a child-like journey of Lang's take on the words of St Paul, through to the Brothers Grimm folktale, The Musicians of Bremen featuring a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster! These references continue with a tribute to Steve Martland and Sir John Tavener – two of the world’s leading lights in contemporary music whom we lost in 2013 – in Martland’s take on the folksong Dance to your daddy and in complete contrast, Tavener’s The Lamb. David Lang rose to prominence with his Pulitzer prize-winning work The Little Match Girl Passion which subsequently went on to win a Grammy award for Best Small Ensemble Performance in 2009 in a Harmonia Mundi recording directed by Paul Hillier (with Theatre of Voices and Ars Nova). Further information on these and all festival events available at www.corkchoral.ie