Frank Corcoran

Frank Corcoran (born 1 May 1944) is an Irish composer.^[1] His output includes chamber, symphonic, choral and electro-acoustic music, through which he explores particularly Irish issues like language and history. He has worked with text by the poet Seamus Heaney in the chamber piece Mad Sweeney (1996), and by the Irish-language writer Gabriel Rosenstock.^[2]

Life

I came late to art music; childhood soundscapes live on. The best work with imagination/intellect must be exorcistic-laudatory- excavatory. I am a passionate believer in "Irish" dream-landscape, two languages, polyphony of history, not ideology or programme. No Irish composer has yet dealt adequately with our past. The way forward – newest forms and technique (for me especially macro-counterpoint) – is the way back to deepest human experience.'^[3]

Born in Borrisokane, County Tipperary, he studied at Dublin, Maynooth, Rome and Berlin. He was a music inspector for the Irish government Department of Education from 1971 to 1979, after which he took up a composer fellowship from the Berlin Künstlerprogramm. In the 1980s, he taught in Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg, where he was professor of composition and theory in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst. He was a visiting professor and Fulbright scholar at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in the U.S. in 1989-90, and has been a guest lecturer at CalArts, Harvard University, Princeton University, Boston College, New York University and Indiana University.^[2][4]

He was the first Irish composer to have had a symphony premiered in Vienna (1st Symphony Symphonies of Symphonies of Wind in 1981).^[2]

Corcoran lives in Germany and Italy.

Selected compositions

Orchestral Symphony No. 1 (1980) Symphony No. 2 (1981) Concerto for String Orchestra (1982) Symphony No. 3 (1994) Mikrokosmoi (1994) Symphony No. 4 (1996) Quasi un canto (2002) Quasi un concertino (2003) Quasi una visione (2004) Quasi una fuga (2005) Variations on Myself (2011), chamber orch Cello Concerto (2012) Chamber ensembles Wind Quintet No. 2 (1978) Piano Trio (1978) Shadows of Gilgamesh (1988), fl, ob, cl, hn, tpt, trbn, perc, pf, vn, va, vc, db Music for the Book of Kells (1990), 5perc, pf Four Concertini of Ice (1993), fl, ob, cl, hn, vn, vc, db, perc Trauerfelder (1995), 4perc Wind Quintet No. 3 (1999) Sweeney's Smithereens (2000), fl, pic, cl+bcl, perc, pf, vn, db Quasi un amore (2002), fl, gui Quasi una Sarabande (2008), cl, bn, hn, 2vn, va, vc, db Clarinet Quintet (2009) Rhapsodic Bowing (2010), 8vc Nine Looks at Pierrot (2013), fl+picc, cl+bcl, vn, vc, pf Quasi una Storia (2014), 8vn, 2va, 2vc, db 8 Irish Duets for Cello and Piano (2015) Solo instrumental Sonata for Organ (1973) The Quare Hawk (1974), flute Hernia (1977), double bass Changes (1979), piano Variations on 'Caleno costure me' (1982), harpsichord Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet (1987) Three Pieces for Guitar (1990) Ice-Etchings No. 2 (1996), cello Sweeney's Total Rondo (2002), piano Variations on 'A Mháirín de Barra' (2004), viola Seven Miniatures for Solo Violin (2013)

Vocal and choral Nine Medieval Irish Epigrams (1973), satb Gilgamesh (1990), 7 soli, satb, orchestra Nine Aspects of a Poem (1989; rev. 2003), satb, vn Carraig aonair (1976), soprano, alto, pf Kiesel (1980), soprano, 2vn, va Cúig amhráin de chuid Gabriel Rosenstock (1980), soprano, vn, vc, pf Dán Aimhirgín (1989), soprano, va, bcl, pf Buile Suibhne (1998), fl+pic+afl, ob, cl+bcl, hn, perc, vn, va, vc, db, spkr Quasi una melodia (2001), soprano, tsax, va, mar, pf Quasi un pizzicato (2004), fl, hp, pf, perc, spkr The Light Gleams (2006), soprano, bcl, vn, vc Four Orchestral Prayers (2006), mezzo, orch Five Lieder (2010), tenor, pf Eight Haikus (2010), satb Songs of Terror and Love (2010), bass, fl+picc+afl, cl+bcl, pf, vn+va, vc My Alto Rhapsodies (2014), alto, orch An Irish Christmas Carol (2014), satb Electro-acoustic Balthazar's Dream (1980) Farewell Symphonies (1982), with speaker & orch Sweeney's Vision (1997) Quasi una missa (1999) Tradurre Tradire (2004)

Awards

Corcoran has won a number of awards throughout his career. Recent awards include:^[2]

• StudioAkustische Kunst, Cologne, in 1995 (Joycepeak Music)
• Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competition in 1999 (Sweeney's Vision)
• EMS Prize, Stockholm, in 2002 (Quasi Una Missa)

He has been a member of Aosdána, the Irish Academy of the Arts which honours artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland, since its inception.

Bibliography

• Annette Kreutziger-Herr: "Frank Corcoran", in: Komponisten der Gegenwart (KdG) (Munich: edition text+kritik, 1992ff.), 5th supplement, July 1994.
• Axel Klein: Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996).
• John Page: "A Post-War 'Irish' Symphony: Frank Corcoran's Symphony No. 2", in: Gareth Cox & Axel Klein (eds.): Irish Music in the Twentieth Century (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003), p. 134–149.
• Benjamin Dwyer: "An Interview with Frank Corcoran", in: B. Dwyer: Different Voices. Irish Music and Music in Ireland (Hofheim: Wolke Verlag, 2014), p. 94–111.
• Hans-Dieter Grünefeld (ed.): Old and New – Sean agus Núa. An Irish Composer Invents Himself. Frank Corcoran. Festschrift at Seventy (Lübeck: the editor, 2015); ISBN 978-3-00-050153-1.

References

1. Hazel Farrell: "Corcoran, Frank", in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. by Harry White & Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013), p. 243–5.
2. "Frank Corcoran". Current members. Registrar of Aosdána The Arts Council. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
3. "Frank Corcoran". Irish composers. Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
4. Corcoran, Frank. "Frank Corcoran". Retrieved 3 January 2010.