Ian Brabazon
Gordon Delap
Anthony Kelly
Victor Lazzarini
Iain McCurdy
David Stalling
Rory Walsh

Ciarán studied Music at King's College London, History of Art at Goldsmith's College London and Orchestral Conducting at the Conservatory of Music in Prague. He made his conducting debut as Artistic Director of the Dublin Screen Orchestra in 1995. He then received an Irish Arts Council Conductors Award, enabling him to study Orchestral Conducting with Jaroslav Vodnánsky at the Conservatory of Music in Prague. His other teachers have included Dominique Rouits, James Cavanagh, Peter Eötvös and Gerhard Markson.

Ciarán became Principal Guest Conductor of the Dublin Symphony Orchestra in 2001, has been Musical Director of the UCD Sinfonia since October 2002 and of the Miró Chamber Orchestra since 2004. He has considerable studio experience and has worked with the Savaria Symphony Orchestra, Studio Symphony Orchestra, TCD Composers Forum Ensemble, Royal Irish Academy of Music Wind Ensemble, Cadaqués Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra and the EAR Ensemble. Masterclasses and competitions have taken him to Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain and France, where he was highly commended by the jury in the pre-selection round of the 2005 Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors.

Ciarán also works professionally as a violinist and lectures in 20th century music at University College Dublin, where he is completing a PhD on the relationship between music and visual art in the early 20th century. Forthcoming conducting engagements include concerts with the RIAM Wind Ensemble and the Dublin Orchestral Players.

 

Bernie Balfe began her musical education in her home town of Ardee, Co. Louth. In 2004 she achieved an honours degree in clarinet performance from D.I.T Conservatory of Music and Drama. She is a past member of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland and a current member of the European Union Youth Wind Orchestra. After further study with clarinettist Paul Roe she is nearing completion of a Masters degree in music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. Bernie is a versatile musician working as a freelance clarinettist, and has recently performed with the EAR ensemble, which featured in the Composers Choice Series at the NCH. In January 2007 Bernie performed in the production of ‘Two for Dinner for Two’ presented by BDNC Theatre, and Concorde Contemporary Music Ensemble under the musical direction of Jane O’Leary.

As a singer Bernie sings with Clermont Chorale an ensemble from Dundalk. She had the role of Mrs. Peacham in The Beggars Opera 2006, her first acting experience.  Also active in education, she teaches at Newpark Music Centre Blackrock Dublin, St. Vincent Secondary School in Dundalk, and Dundalk Institute of Technology.

Antonio Cafolla is a graduate of Maynooth University NUI and the D.I.T. Conservatory of Music and Drama where he now lectures in saxophone and clarinet in the Department of Orchestral Studies. He has made numerous recordings and appearances on R.T.E. television as well as performing in theatres and concert halls throughout the country as both an ensemble player and featured soloist. He has also performed in the U.K., Italy, America and Bulgaria and is a lifetime member of the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain. He lists Orchestration, Jazz History and Music Technology among his many interests and has in recent years completed the U.C.L.A. Scoring for T.V. and Film composers programme with funding from Screen Training Ireland. He joined the EAR ensemble in 2003.

Dublin born cellist Lioba Petrie studied music at Dublin's Conservatory of Music and Drama, and at NUI Maynooth. She is an active chamber musician and founding member of the string quartet Stringology , for which she composes and arranges music. She performs regularly with contemporary music groups Ear, 3epkano and Somadrone.

 

A founding member of EAR, Bryan Quigley has devoted himself to the performance and composition of new music since 2000. He studied bass with Seamus Doyle, Dominic Dudley and with Barry Guy. He first studied composition with Eric Sweeney in WIT where he graduated with a BA Mus in 2001 and in 2003 he received a first class honours MA in Composition from NUI Maynooth under the tutelage of John Buckley and Martin O’ Leary. In 2006, supported by the Arts Council, he travelled to Switzerland for private tuition in composition and bass with the renowned bass player and composer Barry Guy.

 

An International B.A. Music graduate (NUI Maynooth) and the holder of a Masters in Musical Performance (DIT), To date, Brendan has studied with Gwen Moore, Benjamin Dywer and the Belgian virtuoso Raphaella Smits and has attended masterclasses with top players such as David Russel, Oscar Ghiglia, Benjamin Verdry, John Williams, Carlos Bonnell and Frank Bungarten. He is currently studying with the Irish virtuoso John Feeley.

Brendan is a two time Feis Ceol winner, including the George Lowden Bach Prize and has performed live on both local and national radio. Brendan has been featured on the latest CMC CD playing the music of Brazilian composer Victor Lazzarini and has recently premiered a work by another Brazilian Elanie Thomazi Freitas for guitar and tape.

is love for contemporary music is evident from his involvement with the contemporary ensemble EAR. Brendan is the founder of the NUIM Guitar orchestra and a member of the Irish Guitar Trio.

Anthony Kelly is a Dublin, Ireland based artist who studied Fine Art at IADT, Dublin during the late eighties. Although primarily a visual artist he has made field recordings over a number of years. In 2002 he began to formally incorporate sound into his practice as an artist and through his ongoing collaboration with David Stalling has been making a series of musique concrete pieces. This work has been exhibited at many shows including Darklight in Dublin, Synch in Greece and Soundworks in Cork. He has contributed to recent EAR performances and will be involved in the forthcoming Sounds Electric festival in December 2005. Anthony Kelly is a founder of Farpoint Recordings.

Links

Anthony Kelly .Net

Farpoint Recordings

Victor Lazzarini (1969), was born in Londrina, in south Brazil. Researcher and composer, dedicated to electroacoustic and instrumental music, he is a graduate of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). In 1996, he received his Doctoral degree by the University of Nottingham. He moved to Maynooth in 1998, to establish the Music Technology Laboratory, which he now co-ordinates.

Awards include an Honour Mention for his orchestral piece Anima Mea, in Brazil (1995), the Heyman Research Scholarship for the progress of his doctorate research; the Hallward Composition Prize, for his Magnificat, in England (1996); and the NUIM New Researcher Award (2000).

His musical interests also include Jazz performance and composition. Some of his electroacoustic works were included in CDs produced in Brazil and England. His present research work is dedicated to the development of computer tools for signal processing and their application in music composition.

Victor Lazzarini's NUI page

Victor Lazzarini's CMC page

David Stalling was born in Bochum, Germany. Before moving to Ireland in 1996, he worked as a sound and lighting designer for theatre and contemporary dance. He studied composition with John Buckley and Martin O’Leary at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He also participated in masterclasses and further studies with James Wilson and Anthony Payne at the IMRO Composition Summer School, and Don B. Ray, Conrad Pope and Robert Drasnin as part of the University of California, Los Angeles and FÁS Screentraining Ireland programmes. He has received grants and commissions from the Arts Council and FÁS Screentraining Ireland.

His work includes music for concert performance, contemporary dance and experimental film. His music has been performed as part of the Association of Irish Composers’ Sundays at Noon series at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, and the Composer’s Choice series at the National Concert Hall. As a performer he has worked with numerous ensembles in Germany and Ireland, including Tanztheater aus der Zeche (with choreographers Michaela Fünfhausen and Frank Frey), SounDin, The Quiet Club and EAR.

David Stalling has been collaborating with Dublin artist Anthony Kelly since 2003 creating sound and audiovisual works, which have been exhibited extensively. Recent shows include a screening at Anthology Film Archives, New York, audiovisual installations at Ginza Art Laboratory, Tokyo, 411-Galleries, Beijing and Shanghai, artist residencies at ArtTrail, Cork, in 2006 and 2007, and an audiovisual installation for the Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast and the University of Limerick early in 2008. Their recorded work has been released on the sound art label farpointrecordings.com, on the recent CD project soundwearenow.org, and two tracks were released on Wire Tapper 16 (Dec 2006) and Wire Tapper 20 (Oct 2008), distributed with Wire Magazine.

Future projects include participation in the group projects Auralog and Shorelines, Newfoundland, as well as solo exhibitions in the Basement Gallery, Dundalk and Visualise Carlow during 2009.

David is a founding member and director of EAR and a member of Solus film collective.

www.davidstalling.com

After completing his B.Mus., Rory completed a first class MA in Computer Music at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. In 2002 he held a research post at La Villa Media, France where he developed educational music software.

Rory is a founding member of EAR and an active composer. He works within the collective to apply his processing software in numerous live performances of own music as well as in collaboration with other composers

Rory currently lectures at Dundalk Institute of Technology and is completing his PhD at N.U.I. Maynooth.