Tag Archives: brass ensemble

Onyx to Ireland! April 2012

Andrew with a rather colourful score

We can now confirm the Onyx Brass tour of Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland this coming April. The tour will consist of 11 concerts in association with Moving on Music, and Music Networkboth innovative organizations promoting and showcasing exciting music in their respective countries. As part of the tour Onyx has commissioned a new work for brass quintet by Andrew Hamilton, which will receive performances at all 11 concerts alongside a real mixture of things on the programme including Bach, Copland, Shostakovich and some show songs!

The tour includes performances in Dublin Castle, Letterkenny, Limerick, County Wexford, Birr, County Galway, County Meath, West Meath, Bangor, Armagh and Belfast.  We are hoping that Onyx will be able to do some schools and education work while they’re there too.

Andrew is an exciting young Irish composer and we are delighted that he and Onyx are collaborating. The September performance of ‘right and wrong’ for Endymion and EXAUDI was a great success, and we are looking forward to seeing what he will produce for brass instruments!

New Support means New Music: thank you PRSF and RVW Trust

We are delighted that the PRS for Music Foundation and the RVW Trust have agreed to fund Onyx Brass in their latest project – a new commission from Cheryl Frances-Hoad to be premiered in Autumn 2012. The exciting young British composer has won a whole host of awards for her work and is one of the rising stars of the British music scene.

Cheryl will be writing us a brass quintet called ‘The Madness Industry’ – a multi-movement piece investigating the theme of psychopathology in everyday society. In 2008, Cheryl became Artist in Residence at the Cambridge University Psychiatry Department, an experience which has given her great insight into aspects of the human mind and has influenced a number of her recent compositions.

We are extremely excited to be able to work with Cheryl on this project. Not only will it generate a serious new chamber work for brass ensemble, but will also highlight a serious social, medical issue. We are also extremely grateful to PRSF and the RVW Trust for their generous support, without which we’d probably have spent next Autumn practising our Christmas Carols!

The first performance will be at Richmond Concert Society on the 25th September 2012. Keep an eye out for news and further developments.