An unusual aspect of next week’s concert at the Ardhowen Theatre, featuring the wonderful Fidelio Trio with piper Uilleann Cillian Vallely, is that the 10 composers whose works will be performed all recognize that JB Vallely’s paintings, in particular of musicians, have inspired their musical compositions. As each piece is performed on Friday, November 18, beautiful color images of Brian Vallely’s paintings will light up the auditorium.
The Fidelio Trio with bagpiper uilleann Cillian Vallely who will perform together at the Ardhowen.
Music in Fermanagh, in association with the Ardhowen Theatre, has also organized an exhibition of nine paintings by Vallely, some courtesy of locals, others by the artist himself. These will be on display in the theater foyer and upstairs gallery in November, from Wednesday November 8 to Monday November 28. The exhibition includes one of Vallely’s beautiful watercolors “The Spirit of Ceolas”, which was chosen by composer Linda Buckley as a work that inspired her. She and two other composers, Niall Vallely and the young Rose Connolly, born in Fermanagh, were commissioned by Moving on Music with the support of the Art Council of Northern Ireland to compose works especially for this concert in honor of Brian Vallely and from his family. Brian and his musician wife Eithne founded the Armagh Pipers’ Club and not too long ago received a major award from TG4, the Irish television channel, for their ‘outstanding contribution to Armagh music “.
Works by Fermanagh composers Rose Connolly and the late Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin (1950–2018) will be performed on the night.
Rose is an outstanding musician from South Fermanagh. As well as being a composer who graduated from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, she sings, plays the piano and a wide variety of other instruments including the violin and guitar.
Rose has called her new composition ‘Abhaile’, the Irish word for home, and admits her recent experience of studying in the Netherlands at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague has given her a new perspective on Ireland and the style of music. traditional.
Composer Rose Connolly. Photo: Rita Perry.
Mícheál studied under Sean Ó Ríada and the two pioneering musicians have been credited with composing and arranging Irish music in distinctive ways, the result being music eloquently described by composer Gerald Victory as both “new and ancient”. Mícheál was Professor of Music at the University of Limerick where he founded the Irish World Music Center in 1994, which has now become the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.
In the early years of the Fermanagh County Museum, Mícheál composed the music for the harp and the Enniskillen composer also arranged the music for an audiovisual program ‘The Maguires of Fermanagh and the Town of Enniskillen’. The harp accompanied a poem composed for the reigning Chief Maguire, the words sung by the Benedictine monk Ciarán Forbes of Glenstal Abbey in Limerick who was a renowned woodcarver.
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