Adam Heron is rapidly establishing a reputation as one of today’s foremost young musicians.

Since his critically-acclaimed appearance in 2018 as a piano finalist on BBC Young Musician of the Year, he commands a demanding schedule of international performances and recitals.

He is the 2017 recipient of the Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Performance, which he received following a recital at the Wigmore Hall.

Born in Hong Kong in 1999 of Nigerian-Filipino descent, then adopted into an Irish family, Adam has performed in 15 countries worldwide, including recent solo recitals at music festivals such as the Cheltenham Music Festival, The Cayman Arts Festival and The Aegean Arts International Festival.

In addition to his engagements as a soloist, Adam is a devoted collaborative pianist, composer, and conductor. Recent engagements include a tour of his native Hong Kong with British cellist Jamie Walton, and his New York debut alongside the Nigerian-American soprano Francesca Chiejina. Adam has also performed as a concerto soloist with the Chineke! Orchestra.

Adam has received tuition from prominent pianists including Stephen Hough, Paul Lewis, Anne Queffélec, and John Lill. Generously supported by The Musicians’ Company Young Artists’ Programme and by The Talent Unlimited Foundation, he currently studies with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he holds the Hargreaves and Ball scholarship.

Adam Heron

Pianist, Composer and Conductor

Amy Gillen, who comes from Bridgetown in County Donegal, was awarded a first class honours BA of Music Performance in flute and a first class honours Licentiate Teaching Diploma in flute from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 2018. She moved to London in September 2018 to study for a Masters of Music Performance in flute at the Royal College of Music (RCM).

In September 2020 Amy was awarded the prestigious Tagore Gold Medal by the RCM for her outstanding contribution musically and in other important ways to the life of the College. She also received her Master of Music Performance in Flute degree in which she received a Distinction First Class Honours.

Amy has won numerous prizes including the Sir James Galway Rising Star award at the 2017 Galway Flute Festival in Switzerland; the Flax Trust Bursary in 2017; the McCullough cup; the RTE Lyric FM Bursary and the RDS Jago Award at the Feis Ceoil in Dublin.

Amy has performed with the RTE Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra and made her solo concerto debut with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra in April 2018 playing the Libermann Flute Concerto. She has also taken part in the BBC Symphony Orchestra Pathway Scheme.

Amy’s exceptional talent has already been recognised through the award of multiple prizes both in Ireland and further afield not least by Sir James Galway.

Amy Gillen

Concert and Solo Flute Performer

Aran O’Grady, who graduated with a Masters in Opera Composition fromGuildhall School of Music and Drama in London in 2019, was the recipient of the 2019/20 Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Composition for his work for flute, cello and double bass..

Twenty-six year-old Aran, who is from Bray in County Wicklow, received a BA in Composition from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 2016.

His music has been performed by Alluna Ensemble, Aurelia Quartet, David Adams, Michelle O' Rourke, Kate Ellis, Con Tempo Quartet, Kirkos ensemble and Guildhall Opera Company. He was a finalist in the Alkema Composition Competition in 2014. Recent commissions include a vocal quartet installation for the Singapore Biennale and a collaboration with renowned electronic musician Robbie Kitt. He is also a keen arranger and has arranged music for countless functions including for Jameson Distilleries, Dropbox, An Post, Limerick Electronic Arts Festival, Irish National Youth Ballet, Trinity Orchestra and the critically acclaimed Glasshouse Ensemble.

Aran O’Grady

Composer

Brian was the first musician to receive the special Accompanist’s Award at the Irish Heritage bursary auditions in 2018 which provided him with a performance opportunity at the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in 2019.

Brian successfully completed his Master of Performance in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal College of Music in 2020 where he studied under the tutelage of Simon Lepper and Danny Driver, as a Kenneth and Violet Scott scholar.

Prior to moving to London he studied with Eleanor Malone in the CIT Cork School of Music where he graduated with a first class honours degree in 2015.

Brian who comes from Dungarvan, County Waterford has performed as an orchestral keyboard player with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra. He has accompanied nationally renowned soprano, the late Cara O’Sullivan and in 2018 played for the Northern Ireland Opera young artists in masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen and Iain Burnside.

He was musical director for North Dublin Opera’s production of 

, which was performed in three venues across Dublin. Brian was highly commended for his performances in the Royal College of Music Lieder Competition, which took place in the Britten Theatre in January 2019.

Brian Hughes

Piano

Carolyn is from County Kildare. She was the winner of the Dermot Troy Prize for the best Irish singer in the 2019 Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition and recently sang the role of Sister Helen Prejean in the UK staged premiere of Dead Man Walking in Glasgow to great critical acclaim.

Carolyn is in demand as a soloist with orchestras and choral societies throughout the UK and Ireland where critics acclaim her “wonderfully dark, rich tone”. In 2020 Carolyn sang The Angel in Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Guinness Choir at the National Concert Hall in Dublin.

Carolyn has been awarded many prizes including the inaugural Irish Heritage bursary for performance in 2015, the Audience Prize in Northern Ireland Opera Festival of Voice, the Trench Award, the Geraldine McGee Bursary, the Mahler Prize and the P.J. Geoghegan Memorial Cup (ESB Feis Ceoil).

Carolyn recently completed her studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland having previously graduated with Distinction from the London’s Royal Academy of Music in 2017, where she was a Kohn Foundation Bach scholar and was awarded a DipRAM for outstanding performance.

Carolyn Holt

Solo, Orchestral and Choral Singer

Violinist Christopher Quaid is a Masters graduate of the Royal College of Music, London where he studied with Jan Repko. He previously graduated from the BA in Performance at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with First Class Honours.

A deeply committed orchestral musician, he has performed extensively with the RTÉ
National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ Concert Orchestra under the batons of internationally renowned conductors. He has also performed with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Wexford Festival Opera Orchestra, London Concert Orchestra and Camerata Ireland.

Christopher has also received awards for chamber music, including the Leo Gibney prize at the RIAM and the Elsner Memorial Cup at the Feis Ceoil. Christopher has performed in prestigious venues across Ireland and the UK and has also performed in France, Poland, Malta, Estonia and New Zealand. He has participated in masterclasses with Julian Rachlin, Ray Chen, Ilya Grubert and Mauricio Fuks. In January 2020, Christopher performed the Glazunov Cello Quintet at the National Concert Hall (NCH) in Dublin.

Christopher made his concerto debut with a performance of Wieniawski Concerto No. 2 at the NCH in Dublin in May 2016. In November 2016, Christopher was awarded the prestigious Irish Heritage Bursary for performance. He gave his bursary winner’s recital in Leighton House in June 2017.

In 2018, he was a participant on the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme and performed under the baton of Marin Alsop. Christopher formed a fruitful partnership with pianist Adam Heron, an Irish Heritage bursary recipient in 2018, during 2019 and a UK and Ireland tour culminated in a recital at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

Christopher Quaid

Orchestral Musician

Clare McCague graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Music Performance from the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in 2013 where she studied concert harp with Denise Kelly and Dr. Clíona Doris.

In 2014 she was awarded an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Scholarship for her doctoral research which concentrates on the nineteenth-century pedal harp tradition in Ireland. Through her research, Clare has unearthed a catalogue of fascinating musical treasures, including the works of Irish pedal harpist and composer Boleyne Reeves (1820 – 1905).

In tandem with her academic research, Clare pursues an active performance career as a solo, chamber and orchestral harpist. She has premiered a number of new works for the harp in conjunction with the Irish Composers Collective and Concorde ensemble. As an orchestral harpist, she has performed with the RTE Concert Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and Wexford Festival Orchestra. Clare is also a qualified pharmacist, and graduated with a degree in Pharmacy from Trinity College Dublin in 2006.

Clare McCague

Pedal Harp

Dominica Williams, who comes from Dublin, is studying for a Masters in Advanced Opera Performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Dominica was the second recipient of Irish Heritage’s Brackaville Bursary for Vocal Studies in 2020.

She has been working as a singer since graduating with a BA in Drama and German from Trinity College Dublin in 2013.

Dominica was part of the launch of Irish National Opera in 2018, has participated inmasterclasses with Iain Burnside, Sigrid Herzog, Kathryn Harries, Susan Bullock, and Simon Keenlyside, and was a young artist for Northern Ireland Opera. She has worked with Opera Holland Park and INO with performances at the Barbican and with Dutch National Opera where she was covering the lead role of Amy in The Second Violinist. She has also performed solos with the Ulster Orchestra.

Dominica Williams

Mezzo-Soprano

Ellen Mawhinney, who comes from County Antrim,successfully completed her Master of Music Vocal Performance programme at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under the tutelage of Wilma MacDougall in 2020. She previously graduated from the RCS with a Batchelor of Music First Class Honours degree.

Her opera performances include Die Fledermaus with NI Opera, the role of Amore in RCS Opera Scenes, Scottish Opera’s concert production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel and English National Opera’s collaboration with RCS of Dove’s The Day After.

Ellen was the inaugural recipient of the Irish HeritageBrackaville Bursary for Vocal Studies at the auditions in the Wigmore Hall in November 2019. That followed her success at the Charles Wood Song Competition where she was also awarded first place.

Ellen was also appointed as a choral scholar for the Genesis Sixteen programme 2018-2019 and has since joined The Sixteen in concert for their world debut performance of James Macmillan’s The Grand Inconnu at the opening of the Edinburgh International Festival at Usher Hall and the Barbican Hall in London.

Ellen Mawhinney

Soprano

Jessica Costelloe, who performed for Irish Heritage in its “Christmas by Candlelight” concerts in 2015 and 2019, is hailed for her ‘rich, unique tone’ and ‘commanding stage presence’. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School, New York.

Her operatic roles at Juilliard included Zita in Gianni Schicchi, Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Genevieve in Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner and Mrs Todd in Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief. For Chautauqua Opera NYC she has performed Mercedes in Carmen, Larina in Eugene Onegin, Mrs McLean in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah and Pallade in L’incoronazione di Poppea. For Banff Opera (Canada), with thanks to the Ruby Mercer Opera Award, she sang the role of Alma March in the Canadian premiere of Mark Adamo’s operatic adaptation of Little Women, and later Kate Pinkerton in Steve Tiller’s production of Madama Butterfly in Japan.

In recital Jessica made her Alice Tully Hall (NYC) debut performing Mahler’s Rückert Lieder with the Juilliard Orchestra. 2016 saw her debut at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, as the mezzo soloist in Tippett’sA Child of Our Time and at St Alban’s Cathedral in Mozart’s Requiem.

Jessica was a Young Artist for Garsington Opera in both 2013 and 2014, followed by Grange Park Opera in 2015 and 2018. In 2019 she sang the role of Annina in La traviata conducted by GianlucaMarcianò at the Al Bustan Festival, Beirut, and she returned as a Young Artist to Grange Park Opera to perform in both Don Carlo and Hänsel und Gretel.

Jessica Costelloe

Mezzo-soprano

Justine Gormley, who comes from Belfast, discovered her love of the piano when she was found as a toddler playing nursery rhymes by ear.

In 2017 she was accepted into the Royal Northern College of Music, where she studied for her degree with Senior Tutor in Piano, John Gough. Justine has had many successes in competitions, including the special Accompanist’s Prize at the Irish Heritage auditions in the Wigmore Hall in 2019, and the Rose Reilly Memorial Award (an audience award) at Barry Douglas’ ‘Camerata Ireland Academy’. She was also a finalist in the 2019 Young Pianist of the North International Piano Competition, and has been successful in the FeisCeoil Music Festival in Dublin.

Justine has taken part in masterclasses by internationally known pianists such as Barry Douglas, Bernard d’Ascoli and Kathryn Stott, whom she was selected to perform alongside in concert in a piano duo at the RNCM.

Justine has performed in various solo and chamber settings across England and Ireland and has appeared as a soloist at the Lisbon International Youth Music Festival in Portugal. She has been interviewed and broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster.

Justine Gormley

Kevin Jansson who is already regarded as one of the finest musicians of his generation, made his London debut with Irish Heritage in April 2019, he returned to perform again in 2020 as recipient of the 2019 RDS Music Bursary. He is currently studying at the Juilliard School in New York.

Kevin, previously a student of Mary Beattie at the CIT Cork School of Music,has six international first prizes, on both piano and violin. In 2016 he was the youngest participant and joint winner of the Prix Thierry Scherz at the SommetsMusicaux de Gstaad Festival in Switzerland. He was awarded four other international first prizes at competitions in Germany, Serbia, and Italy, and recently received first prize at the Jeune Chopin Competition in Switzerland.

He received 10 first prizes at FeisCeoil in 2015 and 2017, and the Flax Trust Bursary and Audience Prize at the 2018 Clandeboye Festival. He was also joint-holder of the National Concert Hall’s Young Musician’s Award for Strings from 2015 to 2017.

Kevin made his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Concerti Sinfonietta playing both piano (Beethoven 3rd) and violin (Mendelssohn) concertos. He has also performed as soloist with CSM Chamber Orchestra, Cork Youth Orchestra, Dublin Symphony Orchestra, Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra, the RTÉ National Concert Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra.

Kevin is a Music Ambassador of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

Kevin Jansson

Killian White graduated from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 2019 and is currently studying in Paris under the tutorship of renowned cellist Jerome Pernoo at Conservatoire National Supérieur de MusiqueetDanse de Paris (CSMNP), as well as masterclasses in London’s Prussia Cove with Steven Isserlis.

As recipient of the 2018 RDS Music Bursary Irish Heritage provided him with a London debut in the Princess Alexandra Hall in April 2019.

Growing up, courses with Martin Johnson of Young European Strings and a series of cello masterclasses with leading international performers contributed greatly to his development.

The 21-year-old Dubliner has received of numerous awards and accolades, including eight awards at the ESB FeisCeoil, the Father Frank Fahey Award (2017), National Concert Hall Young Musician Award (2015) and third prize in the Noor Muusick Young Musicians Competition in Tallinn, Estonia, when he was just 11.

He has an extensive list of performances to his name, ranging from Kaunas Symphony Orchestra to the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland to Culture Night and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

Killian White

Cello

Winner of the 2020 John Marson prize for outstanding musicianship, Maria McNamee is a current undergraduate scholar at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London.

Maria is an Irish harpist who began playing the harp aged nine, embracing both Irish folk and classical music. In 2011, Maria joined Chetham’s School of Music where she spent six years studying with Marie Leenhardt, Gabriella Dall’Olio and En Hudson.

In 2017 Maria moved to London to start her undergraduate degree in music performance. In her first year, Maria became an Irish Heritage award recipient and as a result she was invited to perform as a soloist at the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival. This led to further engagements, including playing at the Embassy of Ireland in London and for the Duke of Wellington at Lady Antonia Fraser’s book launch in Aspley house. Maria also performs regularly at the Queen’s House and the ORNC Chapel in London.

As an orchestral musician, Maria has gained invaluable experience from playing under the baton of world-renowned conductors such as Michael Seal, Paul Mann, Jac Van Steen, Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, Franz Anton Krager and Ilyich Rivas.

As a chamber musician, Maria’s septet won first prize in the Fiona Ord chamber music competition in 2017. Maria has taken part in masterclasses with the highly acclaimed harpists Fabrice Pierre, Marie Pierre Langlamet, Sylvain Blassel, Hugh Webb and Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche.

Maria McNamee

Harp

Mollie Wrafter, who comes from near Tullamore, County Offaly, has just completed her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) under the tutelage of Leland Chen. She graduated with a first class honours Batchelor of Music degree.

Prior to arriving at RNCM, Mollie studied with Oonagh Keogh and her mother Dr. Geraldine O’Grady. She has been a prize winner at Feis Ceoil, and has performed regularly with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland.

Since beginning her studies at RNCM, Mollie has been awarded the Irish Heritage Bursary for Performance for 2019/2020 and has won the Norman George Violin Competition. She has participated in masterclasses with Ning Feng and Mauricio Fuks. Mollie performs regularly in venues throughout Ireland and the UK, including the Wigmore Hall and the National Concert Hall.

Living in Manchester, Mollie prioritises the connection with her Irish heritage. She collaborates with musicians from Wales, Scotland and England to perform native music with a contemporary twist. Mollie also curates chamber concerts which celebrate the music of female Irish composers.

Through the support of the Wolfston Foundation, Mollie plays a copy of the 'Lord Wilton' Guarneri del Gesù crafted for her by Glen Collins in 2018.

Report from Irish Heritage 2019 Music Bursary for Performance Recipient Mollie Wrafter

I would like to begin by expressing my utmost gratitude to Irish Heritage for the phenomenal generosity and support I have received since winning the Irish Heritage Bursary for Performance in November 2019. I truly believe that my violin playing and performance career have witnessed transformational change that can be directly attested to the financial assistance and encouragement from all at Irish Heritage.

Shortly after receiving the Bursary, I travelled to Madrid to meet with Frederieke Saeijs, a Dutch soloist who has been my mentor since our first meeting at a masterclass in 2019. I enjoyed 3 days of intensive lessons with her that were only possible due to the support of the bursary.

It goes without saying that the world changed irrevocably in early 2020, and sadly many of my plans for the bursary money were unable to proceed. Despite the pandemic restrictions, the bursary has allowed me to continue to study with my main violin teacher, Leland Chen, throughout the last year which has been a lifeline in such a difficult time. These lessons have helped me to bridge the gap between studentship and professional playing.

Furthermore, the bursary, together with a grant from Music Network allowed me to purchase a violin bow crafted by Franz Winkler in 1920 from J.P. Guivier. This bow has helped me to unlock the entire range that my violin has to offer in terms of tone, colour and emotion and will noticeably augment the performance opportunities available to me.

I am very fortunate to be able to spend two weeks this summer at music courses that I had originally intended for the summer of 2020. I have used the Irish Heritage bursary to cover the fees for these courses.

With my quartet, I will go to the Chilingirian Chamber Music course in West Dean which will be an intensive rehearsal and masterclass opportunity to prepare for our upcoming engagements with the acclaimed Kreutzer Quartet with whom we will be recording new music by composer Edward Cowie for the Divine Arts label in the coming months.

With my piano duo partner, I will attend the Cadenza International Summer School for Strings at the Purcell School. At this course, we will be preparing sonatas by Beethoven and Debussy which we will perform at the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in Lismore in September and in London for Irish Heritage in October.

I am so thankful to Irish Heritage for the opportunities that the bursary has afforded me, which have helped me to develop an exciting career as a professional violinist. I am very hopeful that the bursary can be continued so that many more young musicians can benefit and enrich the community of Irish musicians in the UK.

Mollie Wrafter

Irish Violinist

Máire Carroll from Dublin is an international concert pianist who has performed throughout Europe, Asia, North America and Canada including performances in Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, Carnegie Hall and the National Concert Hall, Dublin.

Máire was the first recipient of the Irish Heritage music bursary for performance in 2015. She was the recipient of the RDS Collins Memorial Prize in 2018, the Jim McNaughton/Tilestyle Artist Bursary in 2015 and the 2012 Royal Dublin Society (RDS) Music Bursary, the first and only pianist to have won these prestigious awards.

She made her concerto début with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland in June 2015. Máire has a keen interest in contemporary music. She has collaborated with the London Sinfonietta and Crash Ensemble and she has performed with Crash Ensemble as part of their CrashLands series as well as at the GAIDA contemporary festival in Lithuania.

Máire completed her Master of Music degree with Distinction and on scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music. She was awarded her LRAM degree in 2016 and she is the 2016 winner of the Royal Academy of Music’s Franz Reizenstein Award for outstanding achievement. Máire began her studies at the age of four at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with Gillian Smith later studying with John O’Conor and Ray Keary.

Máire launched her “Hidden Pianos” series in 2018 with the aim of sharing classical and contemporary music in site-specific locations. Hidden Pianos is an intimate performance experience bringing the piano to exciting venues and a CD featuring music from the series is available.

Máire Carroll

International Concert Pianist

Niall Tormey wasthe recipient of the inaugural Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Composition in 2019. He subsequently graduated with a Masters in Composition from the National University of Ireland - Maynooth, 

“Give me your hand and come what may” 

for flute and harp,received its world premiere at an Irish Heritage concert in the Princess Alexandra Hall in London in April 2019. He won the 2020 West Cork Chamber Music Festival composition competition for his piece 

Twenty-nine year-old Niall who was born in Nottingham and moved to Ireland when he was 10, lives in Killucan, County Westmeath. He received a Batchelor of Music degree from NUI Maynooth.

Niall has had 15 of his pieces performed on two continents. In addition, he was shortlisted for the ALS choral competition in 2015, he was a semi-finalist in the John Kuzma award for excellence in choral composition in 2016 and longlisted for the Cantando Quartet Composition Competition in 2017.

Niall Tormey

Sarah Brady received the 2017 Royal Dublin Society (RDS) Music Bursary and made her London debut with Irish Heritage at an opera gale in St John’s Smith Square in April 2018. A recipient of a first class honours degree in Music from the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), Sarah successfully completed her MA in 2018.

Sarah was a scholarship student of the ScholaCantorum at St. Finian’s College in Mullingar, County Westmeath before she attended the RIAM.

Notable engagements include a live radio broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, several performances and masterclasses at the Wigmore Hall, and a song-project collaboration with The Juilliard School and Guildhall, which saw her perform in both London and New York.

She went on to study on the prestigious OperAvenir Young Artist Programme in Theater Basel in Switzerland for the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons. She is currently a member of the ensemble at Staatsoper Hannover. 

Sarah Brady

Siobhán Armstrong is one of Europe’s foremost historical harpists and plays an extensive collection of copies of medieval, Renaissance and baroque harps.

Siobhán was born in Dublin and graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a BA in Music in 1987. She directed the TCD chamber choir, was a professional choral singer in the RTE Chamber Choir and played modern Irish harp before she specialised in earlier music.

She has a particular interest in the rediscovery of the early Irish harp and she plays a copy of the medieval Trinity College or Brian Boru harp: the national emblem of Ireland. These old Irish harps – strung in brass wires – died out in the early-nineteenth century after some 800+ years at the pinnacle of courtly Gaelic music culture.She performs and records with many of Europe’s most prestigious early music soloists, orchestras and baroque opera companies and also collaborates with some of the most interesting traditional singers and pipers in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.

In 2003, she founded The Historical Harp Society of Ireland, the resource organisation that is now spearheading an international revival of the early Irish harp. She is also working on a PhD thesis at Middlesex University, London, on the subject of eighteenth-century Irish harp performance practice, for which the university offered her a prestigious, three-year bursary.

Siobhán Armstrong

Early Irish Harp

Tara Viscardi hails from the Beara Peninsula and is currently completing a Master of Music in Performance at the Royal College of Musicwith Ieuan Jones, alongside a Postgraduate Diploma in Harp Performance at the CivicaScuola di Musica Claudio Abbado, Milan with Irina Zingg. She is also a 2021 Wigmore Learning/Open Royal Academy of Music Fellow as member of early music/folk fusion trio Nobody's Jig.

First prize winner of the 2021 London Camac Harp Competition, recent performance highlights include appearances at the Bloomsbury Festival London, Dublin Philharmonic Society recital series, the Irish Embassy in London, The Royal College of Music Chamber Music series,and the Irish Cultural Centre, in association with Irish Heritage. Previous highlights include performing on the Young Artists Masterclass Programme at the 13th World Harp Congress Hong Kong, for HRH The Prince of Walesin Hillsborough Castle, and for Irish President Michael D. Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin.

Tara obtained her Bachelor of Music (Honours) from TU Dublin Conservatoire, where she studied with Prof.Clíona Doris and Denise Kelly McDonnell. Further awards include the John Vallery Memorial Prize for the ‘best performance by a string player’ at the 2016 Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year, runner up for the 2018 Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Performance as well as being a finalist for the 2020 Cherubim Music Trust Harp Competition. Tara has won all major prizes for harp at Irish classical Feiseanna.

A passionate Irish traditional musician, Tara regularly performs her own arrangements and compositions. Having performed and toured extensively with the TU Dublin Harp and Traditional Music ensembles, she has performed Live on RTÉ Ceili House and Radio Kerry. In 2018, she was a finalist in the World Music Competition at the Wales International Harp Festival, winning the Confucius Prize. She has performed at the CairdenaCruite International Irish Harp Festival.

Tara plays a beautiful Killarney Harp hand-crafted for her by Tim O’ Carroll in her native Co. Kerry, and is very grateful for the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland and the RCM in the final year of her studies.

Tara Viscardi

Tiffany Qiu was born and raised in Ireland. She received her secondary education at St Vincent’s School in Dundalk, County Louth from where she attended the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin where she was a student of Dr Hugh Tinney and Dr Kevin O’Connell.

She moved to London in 2019 to study for a Batchelor of Music degree at the Royal Academy of Music with Professors Ian Fountain, Michael Dussek (chamber music) and Dr Ruth Byrchmore (compositon).

Tiffany was awarded the Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Performance in 2020.

Some of herother highlights include performing under the batons of conductors James Cavanagh, Uri Segal and Finghin Collins, and giving a solo recital to a sold-out audience at the National Concert Hall in Dublin as part of the EPTA Piano Festival 2019.

She has also performed both all over Ireland and beyond in venues such as Carnegie Hall (with the New York Sinfonietta) and the Basilica di San Pietro (Perugia, Italy) and participated in many talent nurturing events such as the Dublin International Piano Competition Finlay Programme. She has also been a regular first prize-winner at FeisCeoil, Ireland’s national music competition.

Tiffany Qiu

Éire Lavery is the recipient of the 2020/21 Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Composition. He is the first second generation Irish person to receive the bursary - his mother and grandmother come from Lurgan in County Armagh.

Éire is an Irish/English composer and performer currently studying at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. His childhood offered an informal introduction to music as he taught himself an array of instruments before receiving classical music training in his late teenage years.

A combination of four years on the Isle of Mull, being related to a large pool of Irish relatives and a firm root in East Yorkshire, gives Éire a character indifferent to the strictness normally associated with the classical music scene.

Writing music for plays, musicals and recitals while studying at university, Éire is developing a voice that hopefully will be heard in the years to come. He takes pride in the playfulness harmony has to offer finding a freedom within the mathematic constrictions in music.

Carolyn Holt

Artists

Interested in hearing more?