JUDITH MOK

Judith Mok studied at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. She has performed Opera and chamber music at major music Festivals like Salzburg Edinburgh, Paris and the Holland Festival. She has worked in North and South America and in almost every country in Europe, having sung with conductors Berstein, Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Rostropovitch, Edo de Waart, Ed Spanjaard, Hartmut Haennchen,  JC Malgoir  and many others.

She dedicated part of her career to contemporary music, composerLouis Andriessen, has written work for her which have been recorded on CD. She performed works by the Oscar-winning Chinese composer Tan Dun, and Irish composer Elaine Agnew wrote a piece ‘Snowhole’ for her and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. She was invited to give a gala concert in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam as a wedding present for the Dutch crown prince, now King HRH Willem Alexander and his wife HRHMaxima.

Now living in Ireland, Judith developed a show called Molly says No! a one woman show with classical song and written by poet/ screenwriter Michael O’Loughlin. She travelled widely with this show and toured the USA  from June  till November in 2011, starting at Lincoln Center New York. Tours in Africa and India followed.

Judith Mok has made many CD, T.V. and radio recordings, including for BBC, NDR, NOS, FRANCE MUSIQUE, FR3, RTÉ.

She has sung and acted in several feature films.

www.judithmok.com

 

DERMOT DUNNE

Accordionist Dermot Dunne has established himself as one of the leading Irish musicians of his generation. As a young student he was a frequent competition prize-winner both in Ireland and abroad, but it was after winning the 1996 RTE Musician of the Future competition that he came to wide public recognition. After completing his studies at the Conservatory in Kiev, Ukraine, he returned to Ireland where he pursues an active career as both a performer and a teacher at the TU Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama. He has appeared at many Irish venues and festivals including the National Concert Hall, Vicar Street, Belfast Opera House and The BBC Last Night at the Proms – to a live audience of over 10,000. As well as collaborating with many leading Irish performers Dermot has performed chamber music with some of Europe’s leading international stars including Natalie Clein, Daniel Muller-Schott, Pekka Kuusisto and Ivan Monighetti. He has often performed as a guest soloist with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and in 2010 toured with them extensively in Ireland, China and Singapore.

Besides performing transcriptions of classics from Bach to Liszt, he is a keen performer of contemporary music composed for his instrument. He has premiered works written by leading Irish composers such as Deirdre Gribbin, Ian Wilson and Jane O’Leary. He recorded three CDs with Argentinean singer and guitarist Ariel Hernandez and their group Lunfardia. He has performed with Crash Ensemble at the Edinburgh Festival, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden London, Carnegie Hall, New York and the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. In 2015 Dermot performed a duo recital with Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto for the opening of the new Ordway concert hall in St. Paul, Minnesota. In recent years he has performed frequently with Katherine Hunka on violin and Malachy Robinson on Double bass in a group called The Far Flung Trio which has been hugely successful at venues throughout Ireland.

 

NICK ROTH

Nick Roth is a saxophonist, composer, producer and educator.

His work explores the liberation of improvisation from composition, the poetic syntax of philosophical enquiry, and the function of music as translative epistemology.

Engaging in conversation with mathematical biologists, astrophysicists, ecologists and hydrologists, whilst simultaneously subsumed by an insatiable appetite for literature, his compositions interrogate the inherence of meaning in formal structure and the symbiotic resonance of words as sound and text.

A curious predisposition and a steadfast refusal to accept the existence of boundaries between the real and the imaginary has led to collaborations with an array of international performers, composers, choreographers, directors, visual artists, festivals, poets, and ensembles.

Nick is artistic director of the Yurodny Ensemble, a founding member of the Water Project, and a partner at Diatribe Records, Ireland’s leading independent record label for new music.

His work is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre (CMC) and the Association of Irish Composers (AIC).

www.nickrothmusic.com

 

KATE ELLIS

“Cellist Kate Ellis has an admirable reputation as an instinctive and technically brilliant musician.” The Irish Examiner.

Kate Ellis is a versatile musician dedicated to the performance and exploration of all New Music.

She is cellist and Artistic Director of Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s leading new music group, and a member of Francesco Turrisi’s Taquin experiments, Yurodny, Ergodos Musicians and the electro-folk group Fovea Hex.

Kate has toured and broadcast in Australia, the USA, Europe and China, performing at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Centre, Shanghai EXPO, Istanbul Akbank Jazz Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Bang on a Can Marathon (NYC) and the Edinburgh International Festival.

Kate has collaborated with, commissioned and recorded works by composers including Steve Reich, David Lang, Nico Muhly and Donnacha Dennehy and has performed with a diverse range of musicians including Bobby McFerrin, Iarla O Lionaird, Martin Hayes, Gavin Friday and Karan Casey.

Kate released a CD of new works for Cello and Electronics on the Diatribe label in 2014.

www.kateelliscello.com

 

DOMINICA WILLIAMS

Dominica is a mezzo-soprano from Dublin. She has sung as a chorus member and a minor role soloist with RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Opera Theatre Company, Wide Open Opera & Northern Ireland Opera. Most recently, in 2015, she sang the role of Tessa in ‘The Gondoliers’ by Gilbert & Sullivan in The Gaiety Theatre and the role of Second Maiden in Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ in the Grand Opera House, Belfast.

As an oratorio and concert soloist, she has sung alto solos with the Ulster Orchestra in Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ and with East Cork Choral Society, Dublin County Choir & DU Choral Society in Handel’s ‘Messiah’. She was the guest soloist for AIB Choral Society’s Summer Concert in 2015 and she has also sung with the Charles Wood Singers as the mezzo-soprano soloist in Duruflé’s ‘Requiem’ conducted by David Hill.

Dominica is particularly interested in contemporary music, and she performed four new works for mezzo-soprano, flute, viola and harpsichord with members of Kirkos Ensemble in an installation evening of contemporary music organised by the Irish Composers’

Collective in November of last year. In March of this year, she was invited to take part in a masterclass with world-renowned baritone Simon Keenlyside as part of the New Music Dublin Festival in the National Concert Hall.

Dominica’s upcoming engagements include ‘La Rondine’ and ‘Don Giovanni’ with Opera Holland Park in June and ‘The Second Violinist’ by Donnacha Dennehy & Enda Walsh in July of this year.

Dominica is a Northern Ireland Opera Young Artist for the 2016/2017 season, and she is continuing her vocal studies under Judith Mok in Dublin.

 

ELAINE CLARKE

Born in Aberdeen, Elaine Clark studied with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she won several awards and prizes. After graduating with a First Class Honors Degree, she continued her studies with Viktor Liberman at the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands.

Since 1996, when she was appointed Co-Leader of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Elaine has considered Dublin her home. She is a regular soloist with the NSO, most recently in performances of Ravel’s Tzigane and Khachaturian Violin Concerto.

Elaine is very much in demand as a chamber musician, being a member of the Ficino Ensemble and Clarion Horn Trio. She has also travelled extensively with the contemporary music ensemble Concorde and performed numerous world premieres.

 

MAIRE SAARITSA

Born in Helsinki in 1992. Self-taught in most subjects, Maire relocated to Ireland in 2015 to study the theatre of the clown, movement and mime. She has since met with many good people with whom she is now beginning to collaborate with much mirth and gusto – on her part, in any case.