2004 Press Releases
New Music from UCC Composers
The first ever CD of music created by composers at UCC's Music Department
has just been released. Reflecting the exciting diversity of approaches
characteristic of the Department, these three works embrace a broad range of
styles and traditions.
The UCC composers Professor David Cox, John Godfrey, Mel Mercier and
Linda Buckley all lecture at the Music Department.
Professor Cox's affecting song-cycle "Willow Leaves" is a setting of "Lyrics in
the manner of the early Chinese poets" by the Irish poet John Irvine. Published
in 1942, the poems concern transience in its many forms.
"Aria 51" (for piano and pre-recorded pianos) by John Godfrey has already been
performed many times in Cork and elsewhere. It received its official premiere at
the Vale of Glamorgan Festival 2003, and was broadcast by Lyric FM.
Composed by Mel Mercier and Linda Buckley, Telephones and Gongs is a
contemporary composition for Javanese Gamelan. While the piece is non-
traditional in both form and content, its composition was informed by many of
the textures, instrumental techniques, and rhythmic and melodic ideas
employed in traditional Gamelan music. The piece is composed from melodic
material generated by mapping Linda's and Mel's mobile phone numbers onto
the Javanese Pelog scale. This scale has seven tones, numbered 1 to 7. The
digits 0, 8 and 9 were treated creatively!
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