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My name is Dave Flynn, I'm a composer from Ireland and I'd like your help to complete a major new initiative to produce and release a recording of three of my most important compositions. The music evokes the ancient traditions of Ireland in the context contemporary string quartet music.
The recording is being produced by three time Grammy Award-Winning producer Judith Sherman, the most renowned classical music producer in the world, who regularly produces albums for the Kronos Quartet and leading composers such as Steve Reich and John Adams. Judith recorded the music in Dublin’s Windmill Lane Studios and Cuan Studios in Galway in August 2012. Now the music needs to be edited, mixed and mastered before preparations can be made for its release in 2013.
The music has been recorded by some of Ireland’s leading musicians, the Contempo Quartet, sean nós singer Breanndán Begley, uilleann piper Mick O’Brien and the string quartet of the Clare Memory Orchestra which consists of the talented siblings Aoife (First Violin), Ciara (Viola) and Cormac O’Brien (Cello) along with Solas member Niamh Varian-Barry (Second Violin).
The cross-genre ability of these exceptionally talented musicians makes them the ideal performers for ‘Stories from the Old World’ a 20 minute work which fuses the sound of the uilleann pipes, sean nós singing and Gaelic narration with contemporary string quartet writing.
The other works on the recording are my award-winning String Quartet No.2 ‘The Cranning’ and String Quartet No.3 ‘The Keening’.
‘The Cranning’ was premiered to great acclaim at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival by the Smith Quartet in 2005 after I won the 2004 HCMF Composers’ Award. It has since been performed to further acclaim in New York, Moscow, Paris, Galway and Dublin. The ConTempo Quartet will give the world premiere recording of the work here.
‘The Keening’ was commissioned by the Galway Music Residency especially for Con Tempo, who premiered it in Dublin and Galway in 2007. It is an eerily, evocative musical painting of the ancient art of funeral keening, a lost art which was vividly described in Breandán Ó Madagain’s book ‘Keening and Other Old Irish Musics’. This work was directly inspired by excerpts from Ó Madagain’s book and this recording will feature the author narrating the short excerpts which inspired each of the works three movements ‘Murmuring/Ag Monabhar’, ‘Dirge/Raicearacht’ and ‘Cry/Gol’.
So far I have funded the album entirely myself. I paid for studio time, musician fees and production costs. I need your help to ensure this exciting project comes to fruition without causing me to go bankrupt!! We need to cover more production costs, manufacturing, design, promotion and to recoup some of the money already spent.
Please explore the options to see how your funding will ensure that you receive several possible benefits, including the chance to have music written especially for you by me!
