Eibhlís Farrell
Contemporary Music
Dr Eibhlís Farrell is Head of Music and Creative Media and Director of Ionad Taighde Ceoil, the Centre for Research in Music at Dundalk Institute of Technology.
A leading contemporary composer she is a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast, the University of Bristol and Rutgers University New Jersey, and studied composition with Raymond Warren and Charles Wuorinen.
Her output includes orchestral, vocal, chamber and opera and music theatre works. Her music has been widely performed and broadcast at home and internationally and has represented Ireland at the UNESCO International Composers’ Rostrum.
She is a member of AOSDÁNA, the state-sponsored Academy of Creative Artists which honours artists who have made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland, and has served on the Toscaireacht.
She is a Board Member of An Foras Feasa, the Institute for Research in Irish Historical and Cultural Traditions, a Research Partnership between Dundalk Institute of Technology, National University of Ireland Maynooth, St Patrick’s College Drumcondra and Dublin City University.
She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, a member of Council for Camerata Ireland and has served as a member of the Council of Heads of Music in Higher Education in Ireland.
In 2011 she was honoured by Rutgers University with the Distinguished Alumna Award 2011 for Distinguished Accomplishments and Service in the Humanities in Music and Music Education.
Her citation quoted her outstanding contribution to music both as composer and educator.
Previous positions include Head of the Conservatory of Music and Drama at Dublin Institute of Technology; Head of the School of Musicianship and Deputy Principal, College of Music, Dublin; and Music and Music Education Lecturer at St. Mary’s University College, Belfast.
Dr Farrell has also guest lectured in many institutions in Ireland, the UK and USA and has regularly contributed to international festivals and conferences.
She has been widely commissioned by many leading performers and organisations and has been guest composer at numerous prestigious events including the Anna Livia Opera Festival, the Tufts University/New England Conservatory of Music Summer School in Les Talloires, France,
West Wales Arts, Cork International Choral Festival, European Youth Parliament at St. Andrews, the National Concert Hall Composers’ Choice Series, RTÉ Music Today series, the International Festivals of Women in Music in Alaska, Vienna, Indiana and Fiuggi,
the Edinburgh Fringe, festivals in Monte Carlo, Madrid, Segovia and El Escorial, the Barbican, Malta, Latvia, the Sonorities Festival at Queen’s, and the American Irish Historical Society, New York.
She was a commissioned composer for the 2012 International Dublin Piano Competition with her work Gleann na Sídhe, performed at the NCH and broadcast on Lyric FM.
Dr Farrell has wide experience as an adjudicator and has served as Chair of the adjudication panel for the Clandeboye Young Musician competitions.
She has also adjudicated for the Bank of Ireland Catherine Judge Award, the Heiniken Violin Competition, National Chamber Choir Young Composers’ Competitions, the Feis Ceoil Composers’ competitions,
the International Masterprize for orchestral composition, the Undergraduate Awards of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the Maltese Human Rights Award.
She has served on the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Music and Opera Committee and also on many advisory panels for the Arts Council of Ireland.
Recently she has been a recipient of ACNI Artists’ Residency Bursary to the Banff Centre in Canada, and An Foras Feasa fellowship at La Muse Artists’ Centre in France.
Her teaching specialisms include postgraduate research supervision, composition, orchestration and arranging, theory and analysis, contemporary music and music education.
She is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin from which her music is available.
Qualifications:
BMus (Hons) Queen’s University Belfast, MMus (University of Bristol), PhD (Rutgers University), LLCM, FRSA, Member of Aosdána
Artist’s work in relation to the Troubles:
I have grown up in a small village in South Down, attended grammar school in Newry and did my undergraduate degree in QUB during the period of the Troubles.
Like everyone else during that period I was acutely aware of and felt deeply about the Troubles.
I have always been conscious of a desire in my writing to rise above and transcend the ugliness and brutality of war and this has very much influenced my philosophy as an artist.
Bibliography:
Articles and references about Eibhlís Farrell’s work are also included in the following publications:
Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (Boydell and White, UCD Press)
Directory of Irish Composers, CMC, Dublin,
New Grove Dictionary /New Grove Dictionary of Women in Music (Macmillan)
The Pandora Guide to Women in Music (Sophie Fuller, Thames and Hudson),
Donne in Musica (Patricia Chiti, Armando Editore, Rome),
The Popular Guide to Women in Classical Music (Anne Gray, Wordworld USA),
The World of Women in Classical Music Music (Anne Gray, Wordworld, USA),
Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Axel Klein, Olms Hildesheim, Berlin),
Contemporary Vocal Technique (Jane Manning, OUP),
Kompanistinnen aus 800 Jahren (Oliver and Braun, Sequentia Verlag, Unna),
The Encyclopaedia of Ireland (Gill and MacMillan),
Musical Opinion (various reviews),
International League of Women Composers Journals,
Contemporary Music Centre News, Dublin.