Finding a Voice, the Clonmel festival of music by female composers, is taking place this week from 8 to 12 March and will feature world premieres by Gráinne Mulvey and Siobhán Cleary. The five-day festival, which is now in its sixth year, is presented annually around International Women’s Day.

This year will feature performances by Musici Ireland, ConTempo Quartet, Nathan Sherman and Alex Petcu, Aylish Kerrigan, Antonio Oyarzabal, Eleanor Kelly, Yonit Kosovske, Catherine Redding and more. 

On Friday 10 March at Old St Mary’s Church in Clonmel, Mulvey’s new work …Until the Women are Free (2022) will receive its world premiere in a performance by mezzo-soprano Kerrigan, pianist David Bremner, cellist Adrian Mantu from ConTempo, and flautist Joe O’Farrell. The new work focuses on women’s rights and uses excerpts of speeches from Irish suffragette Margaret Hinchey (1870–1944), who was active in New York, and Harriet Morison (1862–1925), founder of New Zealand’s first trade union for women. It also includes activists Clare Daly MEP and Magdalene laundries survivor Elizabeth Coppin.

Siobhán Cleary’s new work Sheherazade: The Art of the Trickster will receive its premiere on 11 March in the same venue as part of a concert for viola and percussion with Sherman (viola) and Petcu (percussion). The concert also features the winning piece from the festival’s 2023 Composition Competition for Emerging Composers, Crucible (2022) by Kate Moore. 

Today (8 March), Finding a Voice will present a concert with the chamber music group Musici Ireland, who will perform a programme of works by Germaine Tailleferre, Joan Trimble, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach and more.  

For full programme details, visit https://www.findingavoice.ie.

National Symphony Orchestra and Eímear Noone
Also taking place today, International Women’s Day, is an evening of music at the National Concert Hall led by composer Eímear Noone. Featuring the National Symphony Orchestra and several female Irish artists, the concert, titled Daughters Of The Pirate Queen: The Spirit Of Grace O’Malley, will portray the legendary story of the pirate queen Grace O’Malley/Gráinne Mhaol through music across a range of genres. 

The concert will feature singer-songwriters Wallis Bird, Emma Langford and Dawn Kenny, producer and musician Nina Hynes, soprano Celine Byrne, trumpet player Helen Doyle, singer Aisling McGlynn, harpist Aibhe McBride, and bodhràn player Aimee Farrell Courtney.

For further information and tickets, visit https://bit.ly/3ZJMx1r

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