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Young up-and-coming Irish composer Solfa Carlile, from Duntahane Park, Fermoy, who won the Sean O’Riada composition competition for new works by Irish composers at the Cork International Choral Festival recently. Photo: Supplied

The organisers of the Cork International Choral Festival have announced Fermoy composer Solfa Carlile as the winner of the Seán Ó Riada composition competition for new works by Irish composers. The competition is a collaboration between the Cork International Choral Festival and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland.

Festival Director, John Fitzpatrick, said that the composers and choral experts on the judging panel were “overwhelmed by both the quantity and quality of the responses”. In praising Solfa’s 'Upon the Rose', a setting of the poetry of Irish patriot Joseph Mary Plunkett (1887–1916), they remarked that it “calls upon the performers to utilise interesting techniques in a framework that the judges all agreed is top-class choral writing.”

As the composer of the winning work, Solfa, who has been described as one of Ireland's most exciting young composers, is invited to attend the festival as its guest and will play an active part in a public seminar session where her work will be given a performance reading and discussed. Her winning composition will then receive its international première performance at a Gala Concert given by the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, conducted by Paul Hillier, on Friday, May 3.

Having graduated from the Royal College of Music, London, with an MMus in 2011, Solfa is presently pursuing a doctorate at Oxford University but finds time to continue her composing career with numerous commissions and performance of her works.

This is a busy time for the young Fermoy woman whose family live in Duntahane Park. She is speaking at an academic conference in Vienna on April 16 and flying to Dublin afterwards for a performance of her flute piece 'Dystopia' at a concert by William Dowdall at the National Concert Hall on Friday, April 19.

From there she travels to Cork on the following day, April 20 where the Cork Chamber Choir will perform her setting of 'Is Mairg an Té Gan Ceol' by Clare poet Risteárd Uí Chróinín in a concert at St Anne’s Church, Shandon. Then it's back to Oxford before returning to Cork the following week for the Cork Choral Festival.

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