Timbre December 2010 - Music - National University of Ireland ...

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NUI Maynooth Music Department Newsletter NO. 1-DECEMBER 2010 

Music Department News Letter, NUI Maynooth 

NUI Maynooth 

Ollscoil na hÉireann, Má Nuad 

This Month’s Concerts and 

Future Conferences for your Diary: 

Music Deptartment NUI Maynooth 

1 December 2010 

EIMM 

Featuring John Godfrey and 

Jesse Ronneau 

21:00-23:00, O’Callaghan Room, 

Logic House 


NUI Maynooth Guitar Ensemble 

David Stalling, Director. 

13:10-13:50, Riverstown Hall 


Music Department Plainchant Students 

13:10-13:50, Riverstown Hall 

13-14 December 2010 

Annual Carol Services 

Featuring the 

University and College Choirs, 

Brass Ensemble and Organ. 

19:30 College Chapel 

Admission by Ticket Only: See 

http://www.music.nuim.ie for 

details 

Linux Audio Conference 2011 

The Open Source Music 

& Sound Conference 

6-8 May 2011 

Music Dept NUI Maynooth 

Thanatos as Muse? 

Schubert and Concepts of Late Style, 21-23 October 

2011, NUI Maynooth in association with UCD School 

of Music and under the auspices of the Society for 

Musicology in Ireland. For further information see: 

http://music.nuim.ie/newsevents/ 

schubertandconceptsoflatestyle 

Music in Goethe's Faust: Goethe's Faust in Music 

20-22 April 2012, Music Department and School of 

Modern Languages, Literatures and Culture, NUIM. 

For further information see: 

http://music.nuim.ie/newsevents/conferences/ 

goethesfaustinmusic 

Welcome to the First Edition of Timbre 

This is the first newsletter to be produced by the Music 

Department at NUI Maynooth and I hope that you will 

find much to interest you within it! As you will see, 

we have exciting and enterprising projects underway. 

The Music Department is lucky to have so many 

committed and talented people in its large community 

and to be part of a University which celebrates and 

nurtures the contribution of music at all levels. In this 

edition of Timbre we have featured a selection of 

articles about our research activities, concerts, and 

forthcoming opportunities. We welcome your 

comments and contributions for consideration in future 

issues. 

The Department’s academic year began with a 

magnificent conferring ceremony in September. As 

Head of Department I was privileged to ‘introduce’ the 

Polish composer and conductor, Maestro Krzysztof 

Penderecki, on the occasion of the award of an 

honorary DMus degree. As part of the conferring 

celebrations, Prof. Penderecki conducted the NUI 

Maynooth Chamber Choir, which this year celebrates 

its twenty-fifth anniversary, in a performance of his 

Benedictus (1993). An orchestra comprised of our 

performance students and personnel from the RIAM 

and DIT performed the groundbreaking 1960 work 

Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. For all those 

involved this was a tremendous occasion! 

The Department’s undergraduate and postgraduate 

students are now tackling the challenges of the year 

ahead. The rhythms of our teaching, rehearsal and 

event calendars are steady and yet varied. Student-run 

societies (including the new Musicology Society 

featured in this edition of Timbre) have been recruiting 

members and organising talks and meetings. At the 

end of September we bade farewell to our colleague, 

Professor Barra Boydell. As he retires to Australia we 

wish him every happiness and pay tribute to his 

substantial contribution to Irish musicology and to this 

Department’s development. I am delighted that Dr 

Jesse Ronneau from Chicago has joined the 

Department as Lecturer in Composition and 

Contemporary Music. His evening improvisation 

gatherings (featured below) are attracting lots of 

interest. Dr Cascelli’s one-day Chopin Symposium in 

October was a thought-provoking contribution to the 

re-evaluation of the composer and his legacy in this 

the 200 th anniversary of his birth. 

I hope you will find Timbre interesting and I thank Dr 

Ronneau for acting as Editor. 

Professor Fiona M. Palmer, Head of Department

Timbre Music Department NUI Maynooth 

Bernadette Dunphy (3BMus) 

The Music Department at NUI Maynooth is 

renowned for its proud history, achievements and 

expertise in the field of musicology. Paired with 

the encouraging atmosphere cultivated by the 

approachable nature of all staff members this created a 

perfect environment for the emergence of one of 

Ireland's first student –run musicology societies. 

Maynooth Musicology Society was established in 

August 2010. Its primary aim is to promote 

musicology as a live, approachable and 

exciting discipline within the University. It further 

seeks to provide a platform for students to discuss 

musicological issues and topics in a relaxed, informal 

way and to foster links between Maynooth 

and other universities in creating an undergraduate 

musicology community promoting active discourse 

between its members. 

Since the Society’s establishment and ratification by 

Maynooth's Student Union many exiting events have 

taken place. Notable among these was the Society's 

trip to Queen's University Belfast in order to attend the 

seminar of Dr Jirí Kopeck", with his paper entitled, 

'Zdenek Fibich-Czech Composer between German and 

Romanesque Opera Traditions.' This excursion was 

assisted greatly by Dr Devine. Primarily, the 

Society organises fortnightly discussion forums. 

Recent sessions have focused on film as musicology, 

(occurring in conjunction with film screenings), and 

have considered music’s development in the 

last 10 years. The Society hosts an article club in 

which recent themes have included modernism, postmodernism 

and post-colonialism. The Society also 

engages with visiting artists and conducted an open 

discussion forum with Mr Charles Marshall on his 

experiences with Japanese culture, music and 

performing practice. 

A debate on the canon and its validity is planned for 

December and in the future the Society hopes to host a 

national undergraduate musicology seminar in 

attempt to unite and create a sense of community 

between undergraduate students in the field 

The Society would like to take this opportunity to 

thank all staff members for their support in this 

endeavour, and in particular Dr Byrne Bodley whose 

advice and encouragement has been greatly 

appreciated. 

For further information on the Society or if you would 

like to make any suggestions you can contact 

Bernadette Dunphy at musicology@nuimsu.com 

visit our website at 

http://www.maynoothmusicologysociety.com 

become a fan on Facebook 

or come along to one of our meetings 

on Thursdays at 18:00 (O'Callaghan Room, 

Logic House). 

EIMM 

Evenings of Improvised Music, Maynooth 

Dr Jesse Ronneau 

EIMM is a near monthly series of evenings 

showcasing the rich and often challenging practice of 

experimental improvisation. Each evening features a 

guest artist(s) who are experienced in the craft of 

improvisation. More importantly the evenings are 

designed to encourage participation from audience 

members who may perform themselves. 

The benefits of improvising are far reaching. It can be 

a source of stimuli for composers. It can be a chance 

to explore different techniques on your instrument. It 

can be a chance to hear very strange combinations of 

instruments that probably have not been heard before 

(such as turntables, clarinets, laptops, flutes and 

banjo—not your typical line up). Improvisation 

encourages attentive listening; a crucial skill. 

Naturally, Improv helps develop the ability to think on 

your feet and think outside the box. 

All of this occurs in a supportive and relaxed 

environment that tends to be simply fun. Of course no 

one is forced to play and people who wish to purely 

listen are more than welcome. 

There have already been two very successful evenings. 

The next takes place on 1 December. It will feature 

composer/performer/improviser John Godfrey on 

electric guitar with myself on contrabass. Do come 

along for a night of new and unusual sounds!


Prestigious Music Technology Conference 

Coming to NUI Maynooth 

Dr Victor Lazzarini 

http://lac.linuxaudio.org/2011/ 

The Linux Audio Conference is an international 

conference on Open Source Software for music, sound 

and other media with Linux as the main platform. 

Its goals are as follows: 

• To bring together developers, musicians, composers 

and other users 

• To discuss the Linux Audio core system 

• To discuss Linux Audio applications 

• To discuss Open Source music and sound 

applications 

• To inform about Open Source Software for Music 

• To inform about Open Content licences 

• To collaborate and exchange information 

• To improve the software 

• To understand the needs of users 

• To enjoy music and art performances at the 

conference 

The Linux Audio Conference is an annual 

international free-of-charge event that is reaching its 

eighth year now. This conference has been a meeting 

place for many of the world leaders in the 

development of non-proprietary professional Audio 

Visual software. The LAC was the incubating event 

for many of the well-established Free and Open Source 

packages that have made a significant impact on the 

area, including the Jack Connection Kit, Ardour and 

Qtractor, just to mention a few. Over the years, many 

important technologies were demonstrated at the 

conference, such as systems for spatial audio (Wave 

Field Synthesis, Ambisonics), networked audio and 

real-time processing. LAC also featured presentations 

by key people involved in Sound Synthesis research 

(Csound, Pure Data, SuperCollider, etc.) and 

development of commercial products (Harrison 

Consoles, Indamixx, 64studio, Lionstracs, and 

Trinity). It provides plenty of space for developer 

discussions and - of course - concerts and music (of 

various electronic flavours and genres). Recently, the 

conference has also been a host to the Open Video 

community (lumiera, openmovieeditor, kdenlive, 

kino), expanding its range to incorporate visual 

technologies. 

The conference programme will include talks, 

workshops and electronic music concerts. It will be a 

great event, not to be missed by anyone in the Music 

Department. 

Spotlighting Dr Laura Watson: Research Activities 

I am currently engaged in a number of individual and 

collaborative research projects in the field of French 

music during the period 1870–1939. As a member of 

the Francophone Music Criticism Network, I am 

leading the publication of a digitized edition titled 

‘Paul Dukas: Writings (1892 – 1894)’. The first part of 

the collection (1892), which was prepared with the 

assistance of former Music student Christopher 

Corcoran through a SPUR internship, is now available 

here: http://music.sas.ac.uk/fmc/collections. Dukas 

wrote prolifically on Wagner, Parisian concert life and 

new directions in French music, with his muchadmired 

early articles for La Revue hebdomadaire 

being especially significant. I am collating these texts 

for the first time here and the work is due for 

completion in late 2011. 

The fusion of music, text and drama/dance on the stage 

was a frequent theme in Dukas’s essays and he 

favoured a similar artistic synthesis in his approach to 

composition too. Therefore, I am seeking to define, 

explore and analyse this music-text-theatre aesthetic 

through a large-scale, twofold study of the man’s 

music criticism and creative œuvre. At the turn of the 

twentieth century, this story unfolded against the 

backdrop of Debussy’s landmark opera Pelléas et 

Mélisande and just over a decade later Diaghilev’s 

Ballets russes set the scene for unprecedented 

developments in French ballet. Dukas encountered all 

the key players in the Parisian music world and, 

watching their innovations with interest, responded to 

them via both the public domain (the press) and in 

private (sketching opera and ballet drafts). 

Finally, I have begun investigating post-World War 1 

French opera. Imbued with patriotic sentiment and 

intent on change, Satie and Les six sought out the ‘new 

spirit’ (l’esprit nouveau) and rejected past political 

ideologies. This narrative of a post-war shift, however, 

overlooks a major subplot of 1920s’ French music: 

many composers produced works that suggested the 

war actually encouraged an entrenchment of earlier 

views. I am examining a number of music dramas 

from this decade that document how older national 

conflicts between traditionalists and radicals, right and 

left, Catholics and Jews all survived well into the 

interwar decades—which suggests that cultural 

representations of the French state were in fact far 

more complex than is properly acknowledged.


EMIR 

Dr Patrick F Devine 

There is no denying that musicology is thriving in 

Ireland today. This is evinced not only by the number 

of international conferences held in the country and the 

rapid rate of scholarly volumes which have seen the 

light of day in recent years but even in such initiatives 

as the annual meetings organised by our postgraduate 

music students and the emergence in the last few 

weeks of an undergraduate musicology society at NUI 

Maynooth. 

And yet, only twenty years ago, Harry White could 

write with a reasonable frustration in the pioneering 

first volume of Irish Musical Studies, Musicology in 

Ireland (1990), that ‘music does not form much (if 

any) part of the vigorous discourse which preoccupies 

thinkers in their assessment of the condition of being 

Irish and of Ireland’ (page 296). This sentence appears 

in a chapter entitled ‘The Case for an Encyclopaedia in 

Ireland’. Like the proverbial dog with bone he availed 

of every opportunity to air his vision, so that in volume 

4 of Irish Musical Studies in 1996 there is a reference 

to ‘the much vaunted (but as yet unachieved) 

encyclopedia [sic] of music in Ireland’ (pages 11–12). 

In the introduction to his own survey of music and 

cultural history in Ireland, The Keeper’s Recital 

(1998), he once again argues for ‘a single positivistic 

enterprise, namely the production of an encyclopaedia 

of music in Ireland’ (page 12). 

Within five years the landscape had changed 

somewhat for the better. Hope could be elicited from 

developments such as the formation of the Society for 

Musicology in Ireland and the beginning of annual 

conferences (the first held here at NUI Maynooth). By 

2003 the dream became a reality with the 

establishment of an editorial board for the project. 

Membership of the board comprises chairman (Gerard 

Gillen), general editors (Barra Boydell and Harry 

White), executive administrator (Mark Fitzgerald) and 

administrator (Maria McHale). In addition eight 

thematic areas were identified, with their respective 

subject editors: Ann Buckley (medieval), Gareth Cox 

(twentieth-century), Gerard Gillen (sacred catholic), 

Kerry Houston (sacred protestant), Maria McHale and 

Michael Murphy (nineteenth-century), Mel Mercier 

and Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (popular), and Adrian 

Scahill (traditional). Patrick Devine assumed the role 

of style editor. The team began to operate in 2004. 

Incidentally the choice of the term encyclopaedia was 

indicative of the preference for a thematic rather than 

narrative approach. The acronym EMIR was less a nod 

towards the financially lucrative Gulf states than a 

phonetic equivalent of the instantly recognisable Irish 

female name; at least it compared favourably with the 

inauspicious alternative DIM (i.e. Dictionary of Irish 

Music)! The fact that the Encyclopaedia of Music in 

Ireland is the largest project of its kind to have been 

undertaken in this country will be attested by the 

envisaged publication in 2011 by UCD Press which 

will contain two volumes, one million words and 2,500 

entries by 250 contributors. 

Summer Festivals and Conferences 

Dr Jesse Ronneau 

As Christmas comes upon us it may seem a bit 

premature to begin thinking of the quasi-warmth 

(hopefully) coming our way in the summer months. 

However, now is actually the perfect time to start 

investigating, planning and applying for Summer 

Festivals and Conferences. Although music 

conferences happen year round, it is in summer that 

the larger gatherings often occur. 

Obviously, times are tough for everyone financially, 

but by thinking about future activities now you can 

reap the benefits of early planning and budgeting. 

With ever-dwindling monetary resources at their 

disposal, more and more summer events are requiring 

early applications (especially applications requesting 

financial assistance) so the winter break is the time to 

plan your summer. 

The benefits of attending festivals are multifold and 

long lasting. The most immediate benefit is being 

exposed to new and different approaches and vice 

versa. 

Music is very much a high-contact business. Festivals 

and conferences are essential opportunities to meet the 

leading experts in your field. The long lasting effects 

of personal contacts can (and almost always do) lead 

to future projects and (possibly) employment, 

especially in academia. Festivals are also a great way 

to demonstrate to future employers or universities (i.e. 

post-graduate, post-doctoral work) your level of 

commitment to your field. 

Below is a short list of Music Events/Festivals and 

Conferences concerning Contemporary Music, which 

is my specialism. 

• Among the largest New Music festivals is the 

International Summer Course for New Music 

Darmstadt, held just outside Frankfurt, 

Germany. It regularly attracts around 800


participants. The Festival is only held every 

two years (every even year). The next one will 

be held in 2012. It is a rich and, to be frank, 

challenging environment. To be exposed to 

numerous cutting edge ideas in composition 

and performance can be daunting, but has 

proven to be very rewarding to numerous 

participants over the past 60 years.Although 

historically Darmstadt caters to composers and 

performers of new music, the Festival has 

recently introduced a new commitment to 

Musicology in Contemporary Music. 

• Other new music festivals which are more or 

less held annually are: June In Buffalo (USA); 

SommerAkadamie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgartheld 

every odd numbered year); Festival 

Acanthes (France); Bang on Can Summer 

Festival (USA); highScore Festival (Italy); 

Dizzonance (Rome); soundSCAPE festival 

(Italy)… just to name a few. 

There are other conferences and events in other 

disciplines. For information on these you may wish to 

contact an appropriate member of staff. (It is important 

to note that festivals in non-English speaking countries 

almost always provide English Translation) 

Spotlighting Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley: Research 

Activities 

Following the publication of her monograph, Goethe 

and Zelter: Musical Dialogues (Ashgate, 2010) which 

was launched by Professor Nicholas Boyle (President 

of Magdalene College Cambridge) at the Dublin 

residence of the German Ambassador to Ireland on 4 

December 2009, Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley took up an 

invitation as Visiting Professor at the University of 

Leipzig which was funded by a DAAD Senior 

Academics Award (March to June 2010). The award 

was granted to commence work on Goethe’s 

Correspondence with Contemporary Composers: A 

Critical Edition, a monograph containing Goethe’s 

correspondence with all contemporary composers: 

Kayser, Reichardt, Beethoven, Schubert, 

Mendelssohn, Maria Szymanowska and Spontini. 

During her sabbatical, Dr Byrne Bodley completed an 

annotated translation of Goethe’s complete 

correspondence with Johann Friedrich Reichardt and 

will deliver a lecture on her research in the 

forthcoming research seminars in the Music 

Department on Friday 2 February 2011 at 15:00. 

One of the highlights of Dr Byrne Bodley’s sabbatical 

was the German premiere, a professional performance 

of her edition of Proserpina: Goethe’s Melodrama 

with Music by Carl Eberwein, by the Thüringer 

Symphoniker, conducted by Oliver Weder, with Heike 

Meyer from the Weimar Theatre as Proserpina, on 5 

June 2010 in Heidecksburg Castle, Rudolstadt in 

Germany, with a repeat performance given in the 

Schlosskapelle in Saalfeld on 11 June 2010. Dr Byrne 

Bodley gave two pre-performance lectures in German. 

She was also invited by the Irish Ambassador to 

Germany to give the inaugural lecture of a lecture 

series delivered in German by Irish scholars in the 

Irish Embassy, which is now situated in the 

Mendelssohn Haus, Berlin. Dr Byrne Bodley’s lecture, 

‘Nachdenken über Goethes Freundschaft mit Felix 

Mendelssohn’ (Reflections on Goethe’s friendship 

with Felix Mendelssohn), took place on 25 March 

2010. 

During this academic year, Dr Byrne Bodley will 

lecture by invitation at the following centres: 

Lectures delivered in German: 

! Goethe-Gesellschaft in Weimar (19 April 

2011) 

! International Conference, ‘Fasch, Vater und 

Sohn’ (Fasch, Father and Son), Anhalt-Zerbst, 

(7-9 April 2011) 

! Goethe-Gesellschaft in Kassel (19 May 2011) 

! Goethe-Gesellschaft in Ludwigsburg (27 May 

2011) 

Lectures delivered in English: 

! Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations, 

Queen Mary University, London (20 October 

2010) 

! Research Centre for Translation and Textual 

Studies, School of Applied languages and 

Intercultural Studies, Dublin City University 

(24 November 2010) 

! Department of Music, University of Durham 

(25 January 2011) 

! University of Athens, (1-3 July 2011) 

Music, Memory and History 

Dr Adrian Scahill 

Some of my recent work has engaged with current 

thinking about how music operates with respect to 

collective cultural memories, both in the maintenance 

of such memories, and also in the construction of 

them. I am interested in how music provides a 

temporal space in the present through which we can


re-experience the past, and more specifically reexperience 

our past. This is facilitated through music’s 

polysemic nature, so that a piece of music can be 

saturated with meanings and associations relating to 

the past, both individual and collective. We can, at any 

stage, unpick this weave of memories to find a strand 

of particular relevance to us, as well as having a 

comprehension of the whole. An excellent example of 

how this works can be seen how the effectiveness, and 

consequent popularity, of the RTÉ series ‘Reeling in 

the Years’, is in part based on music’s ability to evoke 

nostalgia, allowing us to recall and to contextualise 

historical events through reference to significant 

events in our lives. Because this is an active process, 

situated in the listener, it means music’s meanings are 

open to re-interpretation, and vague associations can 

become, through discourse and repetition, an integral 

part of a shared cultural memory. 

A forthcoming article on the Flight of the Earls in Irish 

traditional music draws on these ideas to investigate 

how music functions as a means of conveying memory 

and history. Music helps reinforce and re-awaken our 

awareness of the events and figures of the Flight of the 

Earls, while also serving to recreate and reinterpret this 

distant past for contemporary audiences. This occurs 

as part of the living tradition, whereby a social 

memory is maintained through performance, 

transmission and its accompanying discourse. The 

article considers three interconnected ways in which 

the Flight of the Earls has been remembered and 

memorialized through different forms of traditional 

music. 

Firstly, it considers remnants: these are tunes or pieces 

associated with the event or its figures which may be 

from this period, or which are popularly imagined to 

be contemporaneous with the Earls—in these cases, 

the memory encapsulated within the tune is in fact a 

later construction. Secondly, it considers how later 

music and song has, in memorializing the Flight of the 

Earls, reconfigured its resonance to fit themes of 

nineteenth-century nationalism, rebellion, and even 

emigration. Finally, the article recognizes that the 

process of memorialization continued afresh in the 

400 th anniversary events of 2007, when a wide range 

of performances, commissions, and recordings were 

produced. The commemorations also contributed to 

the revitalization of older tunes, reminding us of their 

potency as a means of facilitating community 

remembrancing. Thus, the marking of the Flight of the 

Earls demonstrates the critical role that music has in 

conveying, maintaining and activating collective 

memory, and illustrates how the contemporary 

Music Department News Letter, NUI Maynooth 

ü 

tradition can also be reshaped through fresh 

associations with history and the past. 

In the next issue: a tribute to Professor Boydell on his 

retirement. 

Timbre the Newsletter of the Music Department, NUI 

Maynooth seeks submissions from students (articles, 

reviews, profiles, etc.) 

Please contact Dr Jesse Ronneau for further details of 

the submission process: jesse.ronneau@nuim.ie 

Contact Us: 

The Department of Music, 

Room 38 Logic House, 

National University of Ireland Maynooth, 

Maynooth, 

Co. Kildare 

Tel: +353-1-708 3733 

Fax: +353-1-628 9432 

http://music.nuim.ie/

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