Our online listening club is held monthly from 7-8pm on the last Friday of the month, and is a chance to come together regularly to listen to new music and find out more about a selection of contemporary composers.
We will invite a variety of different guest hosts who will explore the music of a new contemporary composer each session. You'll be invited to spend some time listening to one of the composer's works before we meet, but there will also be an opportunity to listen to the work during the session if you don't get around to it beforehand.
Like a book club but with less homework!
For this month's listening club we'll be exploring David Fennessy’s Letter to Michael [8'29] for SATB choir.
Letter to Michael was a joint commission by Chamber Choir Ireland and the Cork International Choral Festival in 2014, and was premiered by CCI in May of the same year at St Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork.
Letter to Michael was performed by Chamber Choir Ireland as part of the 2023 soundfestival. This is a wonderful chance to revisit this powerful piece of music, or to hear it for the first time if you were unable to attend the concert.
You can listen to a performance of Letter to Michael by Chamber Choir Ireland here.
Recorded on 6 May, 2018, this performance is from the concert 'Choirland Revisited' in Saint Rumbold's Cathedral, Mechelen, Belgium, forming part of the Lunalia Festival.
PROGRAMME NOTES
David Fennessy Letter to Michael
A few years ago I came across an extraordinary image by a woman named Emma Hauck (1878-1920). It was of a page of text written so densely in pencil that it was almost completely black and more or less illegible. Hauck was a patient in the psychiatric hospital of the University of Heidleberg and in the summer of 1909 wrote many similar pages in the form of letters to her husband Michael, begging him to come and collect her. The text consists simply of the phrase 'Herzenschatzi Komm' (Sweetheart come) written over and over again, many hundreds of times or simply 'Komm' (Come). It seems the letters were never sent and her pleas were left unheard.
David Fennessy, March 2014
You can read the letters on which Fennessy's piece is based here:
https://lettersofnote.com/2011...
And find out more about the piece here:
https://www.chamberchoirirelan...
David Fennessy - Biography
David Fennessy (b. 1976 Maynooth) began his musical life as guitarist in a school rock band but had no formal musical training until the age of fifteen when he decided to study classical guitar. He became interested in composition whilst studying for his undergraduate degree at the Dublin College of Music. In 1998 Fennessy moved to Glasgow to study for his Masters Degree at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with James MacMillan. He was later invited to join the composition faculty and has held a teaching post there since 2005.
Fennessy was shortlisted for the Gaudeamus Music Prize in Amsterdam in both 2000 and 2006 and was a finalist for the Philharmonia’s composition prize in 2004. His music has been chosen to represent Ireland at the International Rostrum of Composers.
In 2006/2007 Ensemble Modern awarded Fennessy a scholarship to study at their prestigious International Academy in Frankfurt. A Dewar Arts Award (Scotland) enabled him to live in Germany for 12 months where he created several works in close collaboration with the musicians of the Academy.
In 2010, he composed BODIES, written for the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and La Rejouissance – La Paix commissioned by Ensemble Modern for their 30th Anniversary celebrations, and also received a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award. This British award, providing significant support over three years, aims to give artists the freedom to develop their creative ideas and contribute towards their personal and professional growth. In 2010/2011 he was a Fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart.
Fennessy’s music theatre work Pass the Spoon – a collaboration with director Nick Bone and visual artist David Shrigley – was premièred in Glasgow in November 2011. The creation of the work was made possible by a Vital Sparks Award from Creative Scotland.
Following a first contract with Universal Edition for his orchestral work This is How it Feels (Another Bolero), David Fennessy signed a major agreement in 2011 for his main catalogue of works.
Recent significant works include 5 Hofer Photographs for solo violoncello and Haupstimme, a work for solo viola and ensemble premiered by Garth Knox with Rednote Ensemble at last year’s Huddersfield Festival. Since 2012 he has been working on a trilogy of large scale works based on the diaries of the German film director Werner Herzog written during the production of the 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo.
Fennessy’s music has been performed nationally and internationally by many groups including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Hebrides Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the RTE Concert Orchestra.
Please register in advance by clicking BOOK on the right hand side. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the session.
You can join the session on Zoom via an internet browser on your computer or mobile device or you can phone in on either a mobile or landline to listen using the Dial by your location number.
If you have any queries please email info@sound-scotland.co.uk
