Tarik Hamilton O'Regan is a British and US-American composer. His compositions number over 130 and are partially represented on 47 recordings which have been recognised with two Grammy nominations. He is also the recipient of two British Composer Awards. O'Regan has served on the Faculties of Columbia University as a Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellow, The Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University as a Radcliffe Fellow, Yale University, Trinity College in the University of Cambridge, Rutgers University, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as Director's Visitor.
Paul Douglas Hillier OBE is an English conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in both early and contemporary classical music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He was a co-founder of the Hilliard Ensemble as well Theatre of Voices, and directed the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir for many years. He has been Chief Conductor of Ars Nova (Copenhagen) (2003-2023), and Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Chamber Choir Ireland since 2008.
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) is a professional choir based in Estonia. It was founded in 1981 by Tõnu Kaljuste, who was its conductor for twenty years. In 2001, Paul Hillier followed Kaljuste's tenure, becoming the EPCC's principal conductor and artistic director until September 2008, when Daniel Reuss took over the task. Since 2014 the choir's principal conductor has been Kaspars Putniņš. The repertoire of the EPCC ranges from Gregorian Chant to modern works, particularly those of the Estonian composers Arvo Pärt and Veljo Tormis. The group has been nominated for numerous Grammy Awards, and has won the Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance twice: in 2007 with Arvo Pärt's Da pacem and in 2014 with Pärt's Adam's Lament, the latter was shared with Tui Hirv & Rainer Vilu, Sinfonietta Rīga & Tallinn Chamber Orchestra; Latvian Radio Choir & Vox Clamantis. In 2018 Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir won the prestigious Gramophone Award with its recording of Magnificat and Nunc dimittis by Arvo Pärt and Psalms of Repentance by Alfred Schnittke.
The National Concert Hall (NCH) is a national cultural institution, sometimes described as "the home of music in Ireland". It comprises the actual concert hall operation, which in various chambers hosts over 1,000 events each year, as well as Ireland's National Symphony Orchestra and three choirs: the National Symphony Chorus, Cor na nOg and Cor Linn.
Aloys Fleischmann was an Irish composer, musicologist, professor and conductor.
Michael Philip McGlynn is an Irish composer, producer, director, and founder of the vocal ensemble Anúna.
Acallam na Senórach, is an important prosimetric Middle Irish narrative dating to c. 1200. It is the most important text of the Finn Cycle and at about 8,000 lines is the longest-surviving work of medieval Irish literature. It contains many Finn Cycle narratives framed by a story in which the fianna warriors and Caílte mac Rónáin have survived long enough to relate the tales to Saint Patrick. The work has been seen as a defence of the Irish literary establishment when it came under the scrutiny of Church reformers during the 12th to 13th centuries.
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra is one of the two full-time professional radio orchestras in Ireland that are part of RTÉ, the national broadcasting station. Since its formation as the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra in 1948, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, has grown from a small studio-based recording group to become an active 45-strong orchestra performing over eighty concerts annually. It was part of RTÉ Performing Groups. The orchestra performs classical, popular and big band evening and lunchtime concerts, covering a range of music from baroque to contemporary.
Seóirse Bodley was an Irish composer and associate professor of music at University College Dublin (UCD). He was the first composer to become a Saoi of Aosdána, in 2008. Bodley is widely regarded as one of the most important composers of twentieth-century art music in Ireland, having been "integral to Irish musical life since the second half of the twentieth century, not just as a composer, but also as a teacher, arranger, accompanist, adjudicator, broadcaster, and conductor".
John Butt is an English orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar. He holds the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow and is music director of the Dunedin Consort with whom he has made award-winning recordings in historically informed performance. He is a prolific scholar, conductor and performer of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, is a mixed-voice choir whose primary function is to lead services in the chapel of Clare College, Cambridge. Since its founding in 1972, the choir has gained an international reputation as one of the leading university choral groups in the world.
Conspirare is a choral ensemble based in Austin, Texas. They were formed in 1991 by conductor and musical director Craig Hella Johnson as New Texas Festival but did not begin to regularly perform until 1999. They have released over 25 albums and one DVD and have been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. Their sixth Grammy-nominated album, The Sacred Spirit of Russia, was the winner of the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. Conspirare has commissioned works from composers including David Lang, Tarik O'Regan, Jocelyn Hagen, Donald Grantham, Eric Whitacre, Nico Muhly, Mark Adamo, Robert Kyr, Jake Heggie, Eric Banks, and Jake Runestad.
The International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) are music awards first awarded 6 April 2011. ICMA replace the Cannes Classical Awards formerly awarded at MIDEM. The jury consists of music critics of magazines Andante, Crescendo, Fono Forum, Gramofon, Kultura, Musica, Musik & Theater, Opera, Pizzicato, Rondo Classic, Scherzo, with radio stations MDR Kultur (Germany), Orpheus Radio 99.2FM (Russia), Radio 100,7 (Luxembourg), the International Music and Media Centre (IMZ) (Austria), website Resmusica.com (France) and radio Classic (Finland).
New Dublin Voices, an award-winning chamber choir based in Dublin, Ireland, was founded by conductor Bernie Sherlock in October 2005. New Dublin Voices, whose concerts range in style and period from the medieval to the contemporary, takes special pleasure in exploring the music of living composers and has given many Irish premières, as well as numerous world premières of works by Irish composers. As well as giving concerts, New Dublin Voices is a regular participant in competitions, both internationally and at home in Ireland. The singers who make up New Dublin Voices come from many backgrounds, sharing in common high levels of experience and musicianship, a commitment to attracting new audiences, and above all a love of performing excellent choral music.
Bernie Sherlock is an Irish choral conductor, adjudicator, teacher, and lecturer in music.
Ars Nova Copenhagen is a Danish vocal ensemble based in Copenhagen. The ensemble specialises in the interpretation of the polyphonic choral music of the Renaissance and new vocal music.
Graham Ross is a British conductor and composer. Since 2010 he has been the director of Choir of Clare College, Cambridge.
Siobhán Cleary is an Irish composer. Her most successful compositions have been her orchestral works Alchemy and Cokaygne and her choral piece Theophilus Thistle and the Myth of Miss Muffett. Her opera Vampirella was first performed in Dublin in March 2017. She is a member of Aosdána.
Ralf Otto is a German conductor, especially known as a choral conductor and academic teacher. He founded the Vokalensemble Frankfurt, focused on contemporary music and winning competitions including Let the Peoples Sing. Since 1986, he has been director of the Bachchor Mainz, with a tradition of performing Bach cantatas in broadcast church services. He added late romantic and contemporary works to their repertoire and made international tours with them. They made world premiere recordings of some cantatas by Bach's oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, among other recordings. Otto was professor of choral conducting at the Folkwang Hochschule from 1990 to 2006, when he took the same position at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz.
The Blue Bird is a partsong composed by Charles Villiers Stanford in 1910. It is set to the words of L'Oiseau Bleu, a poem by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, which depicts a bluebird in flight over a lake. It is written for soprano, divided altos, tenor and bass. "The Blue Bird" is the third of Stanford's Eight Part Songs which are all settings of texts by Coleridge. It was widely performed by choral societies in England during Stanford's life and is considered one of the best English partsongs ever written. It has been recorded by ensembles including The Cambridge Singers, Oxford Camerata, Tenebrae, and the Gabrieli Consort.
