Sinead O’Halloran: Another string to Cork musician's bow as Ortús founder forms quartet
Ortús co-founder Sinead O'Halloran, front, with the other members of the Marmen Quartet. Picture: Marco Borggreve
One of the highlights of this year’s Ortús Chamber Music Festival (February 26 – March 2) taking place in various Cork city and county venues will be a performance by the Marmen Quartet. Its newly released debut album, featuring music from Bartók and Ligeti, has been garnering five star reviews.
“We’re really excited by the buzz around it,” says Marmen Quartet cellist Sinead O’Halloran, who is the co-founder of the Ortús Chamber Music Festival. Now in its tenth year, the festival will have concerts and events in Blackrock Castle, Dripsey Castle Estate, Sirius Arts Centre Cobh as well as the Aula Maxima in UCC, the MTU Cork School of Music and St Peter’s on North Main Street.
O’Halloran, brought up in Blackrock, attended Regina Mundi College, and gained her Bachelor of Music degree at Robert Schumann Hochschule, Dusseldorf, followed by her Masters degree between there and the Royal College of Music in Manchester.
She enjoys being on the road for much of the time with the quartet, saying it’s a great way to see the world and improve her languages. “In the past couple of years, we’ve been all over Europe and the US, Canada and Australia,” says O’Halloran on the phone from Sweden.
“We play sixty or seventy concerts a year. We have worldwide management and agents. They are contacted by promoters. They’ll ask us if we’re happy to accept a tour. We say ‘yes’ 99% of the time.”
Being able to make a living from the quartet with some teaching work in London is a privileged position for the four musicians. “There aren’t that many full time string quartets in the world. Most musicians end up doing other jobs on the side. We have a good set up so that doing concerts is our full time job. No matter where we play in the world, very often our concerts sell out.” However, O’Halloran says : “There is maybe a perception that classical music is more aimed at older people. We don’t believe that and we’re really happy to see young people coming to our concerts and being blown away by the experience. It’s important that we work hard to grow our audience and prove that classical music is for everyone. I guess in the past, classical music had sort of an elitist aura around it. When people think of classical music, they think it’s just written by dead white men, but that’s really not the case now. There are so many incredible young female composers, black composers and underrepresented composers from all over the world.”
For the Ortús Chamber Music Festival, O’Halloran, who co-founded it with musician Mairead Hickey, says some of it is taking place in non-concert venues so that people will feel more comfortable. Looking back at the festival, established when O’Halloran was only twenty years old, it has, she says, been an education.
“From working abroad, we’ve got to meet amazing musicians that we can bring to Ireland to perform with some of our country’s best musicians.”
Organising the festival, which has a budget of approximately €40,000 per annum, involves a lot of emailing on trains, planes and in the airports. “We’re really lucky that our parents, particularly our moms, are carrying the flag for us back home. So much of the behind-the-scenes work is done by them. We have a small team supporting us.” Every year, the festival has to apply for funding from the Arts Council, Cork City Council and Cork County Council.
“We tend to just about break even. It’s very difficult for festivals because you never know whether you will continue to get support. We have to book our musicians well in advance and book the venues. It can be scary, living on the edge. You can’t really say that you hope to be able to pay musicians. But we’ve been incredibly lucky in that from year one, we had the support of the Arts Council and the local authorities.”
O’Halloran says that it’s very valuable for musicians to run their own festival. “It’s easy to just swan in and out of the concerts and not really appreciate the incredible amount of hours that goes into any one concert.” When not travelling, O’Halloran’s base and that of her colleagues is in London. The Marmen Quartet has an association with the Royal College of Music in London.
“We can just let the school know when we’re around and we can teach for as many hours there as we want. It’s ideal.”
- Ortús Chamber Music Festival takes place February 26 – March 2 in various venues around Cork. See Ortusfestival.ie
