Music that reads between the lines at Cork Choral Festival

A psychiatric patient’s densely written letters to her husband inspired David Fennessy to compose a haunting dirge for the Cork Choral Festival, says Jo Kerrigan.

WHEN We Were Children, the 7.30pm concert at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral on Friday, May 2, will be one of the highlights of the 60th Cork International Choral Festival. The concert will be performed by Chamber Choir Ireland under conductor, Paul Hillier, to mark the festival’s diamond jubilee. Several world premieres are in the concert, including Malcolm Williamson’s ‘The Musicians of Bremen’, Michael Gordon’s ‘The Bird Watcher’, and John Tavener’s ‘Song for Athene’, as well as ‘Solomon Grundy’, by Dónal MacErlaine, the winning composition from the 2014 Séan Ó Riada Competition. One of the most haunting pieces that night will be ‘Letter to Michael’, a newly commissioned piece by composer David Fennessy.

Maynooth-born Fennessy studied at Dublin College of Music and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where he now teaches at the composition faculty. Shortlisted for the Gaudeamus Music Prize, in Amsterdam, in both 2000 and 2006, his music has been performed internationally.