The commissioning and performance of music by living composers is an essential part of our annual festival.
New Music at the 2025 Winter Chamber Music Festival
This year GlasDrum and The Fidelio Trio are delighted present the world premiere of Nick Roth’s new work for violin and cello, inspired by the Tree of Heaven - Ailanthus altissima.It feels especially apt that the performance takes place in the Visitor Centre at the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland, where the Ailanthus altissima can be seen. The festival will also feature music by distinguished Irish composer Simon Mawhinney, and a composers workshop in collaboration with The Fidelio Trio, Simon Mawhinney and the Contemporary Music Centre (CMC).
Nick Roth
Nick Roth is a saxophonist, composer, producer and educator. His work seeks the liberation of improvisation from composition, the poetic syntax of philosophical enquiry, and the function of music as translative epistemology.
A curious predisposition and a steadfast refusal to accept the existence of boundaries between the real and the imaginary has led to collaborations with an array of performers, composers, choreographers, visual artists, poets, sculptors, directors, festivals and ensembles around the world.
Fascinated by emergent behaviour, his work is an investigation into how we can come to know through the art of music, in conversation with scientists from the fields of mathematical biology, astrophysics, forest canopy ecology, evolutionary genetics, high-frequency market trading, neuroscience, quantum loop gravity or hydrology.
Simultaneously subsumed by an insatiable appetite for literature, his compositions often interrogate the resonant symbiosis of language as sound and symbol.
He has served as artist-in-residence at institutions including the European Space Agency (ESTEC), California Academy of Sciences (CalAcademy), Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (CCI), Porto's Casa da Arquitectura and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).
He is a founding member of the Yurodny Ensemble and The Water Project, artistic co-director of Unreal Cities, and a partner at Diatribe Records, Ireland's leading record label for new music.
His work is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre.
SIMON MAwhinney
Simon Mawhinney was born in Co. Down, Northern Ireland and was educated at the universities of Oxford, York and Queen’s, Belfast, where he was appointed Lecturer in Music in June 2006. His compositions have been performed throughout the world by an international range of leading performers and ensembles and have received a wide range of awards and prizes, including the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize. His music has been commissioned by several major international music festivals and has been broadcast on numerous occasions.
Mawhinney’s music ranges from quietude to frenetic exhilaration and draws on a wide range of contemporary influences: from complexist music to the colouristic harmonies of post-spectralism to the cantillation of numerous cultures. Piano performance also forms an integral part of his work. Described by the Irish Times as an ‘ardent’ performer, he has a wide repertoire ranging from Bach to Boulez and has given performances which have received critical acclaim throughout Europe. He is currently Professor of Composition at Queen’s
RHona Clarke
Born in Dublin, composer Rhona Clarke’s output includes choral, chamber, orchestral and electronic works. She has received commissions from RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, The Sydney Philharmonia Chorus, Chamber Choir Ireland, the Choir of the Chapels Royal, the Cork International Choral Festival, Hard Rain Soloists, Concorde, Music Network and the National Concert Hall, among others. Her work has been performed and broadcast throughout Ireland and worldwide.
SHIFT for orchestra, a work commissioned by RTÉ and performed by the RTÉNSO conducted by Gavin Maloney, was selected to represent Ireland in the 2014 International Rostrum of Composers. Since 2009 she has been collaborating with visual artist Marie Hanlon, including short experimental films with music, live music with visual projections and joint exhibitions. Her chamber music includes four works for piano trio, which have been performed by Concorde, the Fidelio Trio and the Vienna Mozart Trio and three string quartets performed by ConTempo, Quatuor Voce and Bird on a Wire quartets.
A portrait CD of her chamber music, A Different Game (Fidelio Trio), was released in March 2017 and 2022 will see the release of a new CD of Clarke’s choral music performed by the State Choir LATVIJA.
Rhona Clarke is a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s affiliation of creative artists.
MariaN InGoldsby
Marian Ingoldsby was born in Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary. She studied composition with Gerald Barry at University College, Cork, graduating with an MA in Composition and winning the Fleischmann Prize in 1995. She is currently a lecturer in the music department of Waterford Institute of Technology.
She has been commissioned by, among others, Opera Theatre Company, which premiered her chamber opera, Hot Food with Strangers in 1991; the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland/Ulster Orchestra; Presteigne International Festival of Music and the Arts, Wales; Cork International Choral Festival; Pearls before Swine, Sweden; and the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition.
Awards include the Macaulay Fellowship (1995) and, in 1996, the first Elizabeth Maconchy Composition Fellowship tenable at the University of York. This enabled her to undertake a DPhil in Composition with Nicola LeFanu which she completed in 2000.
Jane O’Leary
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Jane O’Leary became resident in Ireland in 1972, making her home in Galway. A founding member of Aosdána, she is a graduate of Vassar College and holds a PhD in composition from Princeton University. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree by the National University of Ireland in 2007. She was the recipient of the National Concert Hall Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025 for her contribution to the musical life of Ireland.
As artistic director and pianist of Concorde, Ireland’s first new music ensemble, Jane has been deeply committed to connecting performers, composers and listeners since the group was founded in 1976.
The Passing Sound of Forever, a CD of Jane’s chamber music, was released in 2017 and her orchestral work from sea-grey shores was released in 2021, with Navona Records. The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra featured this work on their debut tour of the USA in 2003.
She was a winner in the Call for Scores from Kaleidoscope MusArt, and her Five Bagatelles for piano solo were performed online in their 2020-21 Season. She was also awarded a Prize in the Kwidzyn Classical Music Awards, Poland in 2020 with her duo for flute and piano – feather-headed, frail, summoning.
Jane’s music has been performed at prestigious international festivals and venues, including the Kennedy Center, Washington DC; the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, NY; Chicago Cultural Center. In recent years, her music has been featured at Risuonanze festival, Udine, Italy; Encontro Internacional de Cordas, Limeira (S.P.) Brazil; National Auditorium Madrid; Mise-en Music Festival, NY; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; and at venues across Ireland.
A portrait concert featuring her music for clarinet and piano was presented in New York City in 2019, and she was featured composer with Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble in Belfast throughout their 2018-19 season.
Premieres in 2020 included Triptych for string quartet and orchestra at New Music Dublin with Ryan McAdams and Ligeti String Quartet; a quintet for Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble in Belfast; forever begin for ConTempo Quartet in Galway.
Some Call it Home, a dramatic work commissioned by University of Plymouth as part of the Mayflower 400 commemorations, was premiered in Plymouth, England in 2021. In 2022 Navarra Quartet featured the passing sound of forever in a concert at Kings Place London, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland premiered unfolding soundscapes, for piano and orchestra, in Galway and Dublin.
TAZUL TAJUDDIN
Tazul Izan Tajuddin is a Malaysian and British resident, was born in Malaysia. He grew up in Kuala Lumpur, later spent 3 years in USA and 12 years in London. He studied music in Malaysia and received special music scholarship award initiated by Malaysian Prime Minister to further study in composition. He went and studied composition in USA at Carnegie Mellon University and later University of Sussex in the UK (Doctor of Philosophy in Composition 2002) and also did composition courses in Spain and France. His music such as the Arabesque¸ Tenunan, Mediasi Ukiran and Gamelbati cycles has been inspired by Asian cultures, geometrical patterns and designs, and Western European art combined with multi-cultural contemporary ideals. Distinguished French composer, Henri Dutilleux described him as ‘a very finely gifted composer and an original temperament, which encompasses both rigour and new ways of thinking’. He has studied with renowned composers such as Leonardo Balada, Michael Finnissy, Martin Butler and Jonathan Harvey. He also has studied with Franco Donatoni (Manuel de Falla Festival, Spain), and consulted with Brian Ferneyhough (at IRCAM, Paris) and meeting Xenakis in Pittsburgh and New York in 1996 and Pierre Boulez at Fontainbleau, France.
He has been the first Malaysian composer to win 1st prize in the prestigious Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2002, 1st prize in the 8th Tokyo International Competition for Chamber Music Composition 2003, 1st prize in the 2nd Molinari Quartet Composition Competition 2004 (Canada), 1st prize in the 21st Japan Society of Contemporary Music Award for Composers 2004, 1st prize in the Lutoslawski Composition Award 2005 (Poland) and won the New Millennium Composition Commission Award (UK) 2005. He has been the first Malaysian composer to be shortlisted composer with the Society for Promotion of New Music three times in 2001, 2004 and 2007. His work Tenunan was selected by the Asian Composer’s League-Asian Music Festival, Tokyo in 2003. In 2006, International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) Britain selected his work Tenunan II for the ISCM World Music Days 2007 Hong Kong, representing both UK and Malaysia. In 2010, Sebuah Pantun III has received repertoire honorary mentioned in the Carl von Ossietzky International Composition Competition (Germany).
Performances include Self-Portrait (1996, Carnegie Philharmonic Orchestra, Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh), Ritual (1997, National Choir of Malaysia (NCM), Experimental Theatre, Kuala Lumpur), Tenunan II (2002, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Opera City Centre, NHK Radio Japan, 2003, Carnegie Philharmonic Orchestra, Carnegie Music Hall, USA, 2007, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, HK City Hall) Pulsating Colours (2003, first Malay composer commissioned and performed by Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Petronas Twin Towers, KL), Meditasi Ritualistik…(2003, NCM, National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia (NSO), National Arts Theatre, Kuala Lumpur) Kehalusan Ukiran (2004, London Sinfonietta, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, BBC Radio 3), Mediasi Ukiran II (2004, BBCSO, Maida Vale Studio), Mediasi Ukiran (2005, Molinari Quartet, Salle Redpath, Montreal, 2006, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ Amsterdam), Gamelbati (2006, Sir Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire), Gamelbati VI (2007, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Seoul, South Korea), In Liquid Praise of Sound Refraining (2007, BBC Singers, Spitalfields Festival, London), Warna Yang Bernada for piano and ensemble was commissioned to celebrate the 50th Malaysian Anniversary Concert (2007, London Sinfonietta, Pierre Andre Valade, Cadogan Hall) and Gamelbati III for string quartet (2009, XIII Lutoslawski Forum, Warsaw, Poland), Mimpi Dalam Lagu (2010, Kuala Lumpur, NCM), Sebuah Pantun IV (2011, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, 3rd Pharos International Music Festival, Nicosia, Cyprus), Sebuah Pantun V (2012, University of Melbourne, Australia).
He has received support from SPNM, RVW Trust, Performing Rights Society UK, OMEC, UK and the Society of Lutoslawski. In 2010 as artistic director, he initiated, conducted and curated the 1st Malaysian Composers Concert Series, to promote students and young composers and performers to perform new works collaboration between UiTM and KL Performing Arts Centre (klpac). He was nominated for MERDEKA Award 2012, one of the most prestigious awards in Malaysia.
His works have been performed and broadcasted in Asia, Europe, Australasia and North America. He started conducting in 1991 as assistant conductor of the National Choir, Malaysia and later in 1997 and 2003 he was invited as composer/conductor. He has conducted his own works with Carnegie Contemporary Ensemble (USA), National Choir of Malaysia, National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia and since 2001 with the Sculpted Sound Ensemble with artistic director Derek Shiel in London, UK. He also has conducted new works by Malaysian composers and other composers from England, Italy and Germany.
As a researcher, he has received FRGS and EGRS research grants from Malaysian Higher Education on Malaysian traditional music such as Keroncong and Mak Yung. He is currently a Chair of Composition Program and Associate Professor in Composition at Faculty of Music, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). He is also President for the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers (SMCC) and Artistic Director of Malaysian Composers Concert Series.