How it all began....

Pebbles on the beach of Greystones Harbour

Several months ago, whilst sitting in front of my computer searching for composition competitions and opportunities, I came across Wicklow County Council's Per Cent for Arts Scheme, which was holding a competition for eight commissions (one of which was for music). The scheme is amazingly impressive, and funds the commissioning of many different art forms, from literature through music to public sculpture. You can find more out about the programme here:

http://www.wicklow.ie/artsoffice/Public%20Art/index.htm

I came up with the idea of writing a piano concerto for Bobby Chen, a great friend and great pianist, and Wicklow's local orchestra, and immediately set about bombarding people in Wicklow with emails asking them whether they would be interested in the project. I received a fabulous amount of feedback, and the success of my application has been helped tremendously by everyone's help and enthusiasm. In particular I have at this point to thank Tony Flemming (Chairman of the Greystones Orchestra), who has replied incredibly quickly to my many emails, which have ranged in subject matter from which train to get on to get to the orchestra' recent concert, to how much to budget for for church hire, piano tuning and even the orchesta's tea and biscuits! I'm aware that it may have seemed somewhat insane, some composer randomly emailing an orchestra in a county that I'd never even been to before and suggesting that they might like a new twenty-five minute piece from me, and I'm very grateful for everyone's willingness to go along with my ideas!

Also high on the list to thank are Dermot McCabe of the Bray Arts Club (see www.brayarts.net)
for publishing my article about the project in the May edition of the Bray Arts Journal, and Grainne McLoughlin of the Greystones Arts Festival for all her help and support (a mini site about this project will soon appear on the Greystones Arts Festival website). Many thanks to the people who have contributed ideas for the piano concerto (more of that later!)...

So, I set about getting an application together...I think the advert that I wrote for the Bray Arts Journal sums the project up, so here it is reproduced below....