Free online workshops for adults in composing music with Irish National Opera
We’re delighted to announce more free online workshops with Irish National Opera. Join composer, Finola Merivale, for a series of interactive online sessions for adults living in Tallaght and South Dublin. Over the course of four weeks, you’ll get the chance to try your hand at making music in a variety of ways. You don’t need to be able to read music, play an instrument, sing or know anything about writing music at all to take part. Participation is free of charge.
These workshops form part of Irish National Opera’s ‘Out of the Ordinary’ project, which sees INO work with members of the community to create a brand new opera for Virtual Reality, so some of the sounds created in these sessions may feature in the opera itself, which will tour Ireland in the Summer of 2022. More information about the project can be found at https://www.irishnationalopera.ie/what-we-do/outreach/out-of-the-ordinary.
There will be four workshop sessions which will take place via Zoom on the following dates at 7pm – 8:30pm:
Thursday 8 April
Thursday 15 April
Thursday 22 April
Thursday 29 April
If you’d like to get involved please fill in the form here no later than 1st April.
These workshops are open to anyone over the age of 18, with a focus on people living in Tallaght and South Dublin. While anyone over 18 is welcome to apply, spaces on the course are limited, so we will prioritise applications from this area. We will be in touch to let you know if you’ve been successful in gaining a place on the project.
Finola Merivale biog:
Finola Merivale is an Irish composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, currently living in New York City. She is a Dean’s Fellow at Columbia University where she is pursuing a DMA in Composition, studying with George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas and Zosha Di Castri. Themes that run across her music include climate change, inequality and a sense of place – both real and imagined.
Her compositions have been performed internationally – in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia – and featured at festivals such as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, the Contemporary Music Festival of Buenos Aires, and Vox Feminae in Tel Aviv. Her music has been performed by musicians of the Chicago and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Talea Ensemble, Desdemona Ensemble, Crash Ensemble, ~Nois Quartet, PRISM Saxophone Quartet and Bearthoven, amongst others. Projects in 2020–21 include commissions from bassoonist Rebekah Heller, pianist Karl Larson and her first evening-length multimedia work for Real Loud.
Finola will have three records released in 2021, including her first solo album, String Music of Finola Merivale recorded by Desdemona Ensemble. Pathos Trio is releasing her new work oblivious / oblivion on their debut album and ~Nois Quartet is releasing her 2016 saxophone quartet Kenopsia.
Finola also plays gamelan, which she has spent time studying in Java, Indonesia. During her mid-twenties, she spent two years teaching English in Hong Kong. When she’s not composing, she enjoys exploring New York City, yoga, playing with her adopted cat Saffron, cooking vegetarian food for friends, and relaxing with a cup of Barry’s Tea, which hails from her home county of Cork.
