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Frank Corcoran

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Name
  
Frank Corcoran


Role
  
Composer

Frank Corcoran wwworvietonewsituploadfotofrankcorcoranjpg

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Irish Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Choir Ireland, RTE National Symphon, Max Lifchitz, RTE Vanbrugh Quartet

Frank corcoran talking with tristan rosenstock


Frank Corcoran (born 1 May 1944) is an Irish composer. His output includes chamber, symphonic, choral and electro-acoustic music, through which he explores particularly Irish issues like language and history. He has worked with text by the poet Seamus Heaney in the chamber piece Mad Sweeney (1996), and by the Irish-language writer Gabriel Rosenstock.

Contents

Frank Corcoran httpswwwcmciesitesdefaultfilesstylescomp

Interview with frank corcoran


Life

I came late to art music; childhood soundscapes live on. The best work with imagination/intellect must be exorcistic-laudatory- excavatory. I am a passionate believer in "Irish" dream-landscape, two languages, polyphony of history, not ideology or programme. No Irish composer has yet dealt adequately with our past. The way forward – newest forms and technique (for me especially macro-counterpoint) – is the way back to deepest human experience.'

Born in Borrisokane, County Tipperary, he studied at Dublin, Maynooth, Rome and Berlin. He was a music inspector for the Irish government Department of Education from 1971 to 1979, after which he took up a composer fellowship from the Berlin Künstlerprogramm. In the 1980s, he taught in Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg, where he was professor of composition and theory in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst. He was a visiting professor and Fulbright scholar at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in the U.S. in 1989-90, and has been a guest lecturer at CalArts, Harvard University, Princeton University, Boston College, New York University and Indiana University.

He was the first Irish composer to have had a symphony premiered in Vienna (1st Symphony Symphonies of Symphonies of Wind in 1981).

Corcoran lives in Germany and Italy.

Awards

Corcoran has won a number of awards throughout his career. Recent awards include:

  • StudioAkustische Kunst, Cologne, in 1995 (Joycepeak Music)
  • Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition in 1999 (Sweeney's Vision)
  • EMS Prize, Stockholm, in 2002 (Quasi Una Missa)

    • He has been a member of Aosdána, the Irish Academy of the Arts which honours artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland, since its inception.

    Recordings

  • Piano Trio; The Quare Hawk; String Quartet No. 1; Gestures of Sound and Silence, Mythologies, performed by Hesketh Trio, Madeleine Berkeley (fl), Testore Quartet, Aisling Drury-Byrne (vc), Frank Corcoran (pf), Roger Doyle (perc), on: Self Help 101 (LP, 1980).
  • Mikrokosmoi, performed by Irish Chamber Orchestra, Fionnuala Hunt (cond.), on: Black Box Music BBM 1013 (CD, 1998).
  • Symphonies No. 2, 3, and 4, performed by National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Colman Pearce (cond.), on: Marco Polo 8.225107 (CD, 1999).
  • Mad Sweeney; Music for the Book of Kells; Wind Quintet; Sweeney's Vision, performed by Das Neue Werk NDR Ensemble, Percussion Modern, Stuttgart Wind Quintet, on: Black Box Music BBM 1026 (CD, 1999).
  • Trauerfelder, performed by Modern Percussion, Joachim Winkler (cond.), on: Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg [no label code] (CD, 2000).
  • Quasi una missa; Piano Trio; Balthasar's Dream; Five Rosenstock Lieder; Wind Quintet No. 3; Sweeney's Farewell, performed by Hesketh Trio, Sabine Sommerfeld (soprano), Hamburg Trio, Daedalus Quintet, on: col legno WWE 1CD 20214 (CD, 2003).
  • Sweeney's Smithereens; Five Trauerfelder; Tradurre - Tradire; Concert for String Orchestra; Five Songs Without Words, performed by Ensemble für Neue Musik München & Dieter Cichewicz (cond.), Percussion-Ensemble München & Dieter Cichewicz (cond.), Die Maulwerker & electronics, Irish Chamber Orchestra & David Robertson (cond.), Das Neue Werk NDR Ensemble & Dieter Cichewicz (cond.), on: Composers Art Label cal-13017 (CD, 2003).
  • Quasi una visione; Ice-Etchings No. 2; Quasi un concerto; Quasi Variations on 'A Mhárín de Bharra'; Quasi un pizzicato; Quasi Aspects of an Irish Poem, performed by Ensemble Modern & Sian Edwards (cond.), David Stromberg (vc), Cantus Kammerorchester & Beroslaw Sipus (cond.), Wireworks Ensemble & René Gulikers (cond.), National Chamber Choir & Celso Antunes (cond.), Constantin Zanidache (va), on: Composers Art Label cal-13021 (CD, 2006).
  • Cello Concerto; Rhapsodietta Joyceana; Rhapsodic Bowing; Duetti Irlandesi, performed by Martin Johnson (vc), Fergal Caulfield (pf), RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Gavin Maloney (cond.), on: RTÉ lyric fm CD 154 (CD, 2017).

    • References

    Frank Corcoran Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA