seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Adjudicator


by Leave a comment

Death of Carl Hardebeck, Traditional Music Composer & Arranger

Carl Gilbert Hardebeck, or Carl G. Hardebec, British-born Irish composer and arranger of traditional music, dies in Dublin on February 10, 1945.

Hardebeck is born on December 10, 1869, in Clerkenwell, London, to a German father and Welsh mother. He loses his sight when he is a baby. He attends the Royal Normal School for the Blind in London (1880–92) where, under his teacher Frederick Corder, a professor from the Royal Academy of Music, he shows a marked aptitude for music.

In 1893, at the age of twenty-four, Hardebeck moves to Belfast, where he opens a music store, but the venture fails, and he becomes the organist of a small parish in the city, the Holy Family Church, Wellington Place. He enters an anthem, O God of My Salvation, for contralto and chorus, for the 1897 Dublin Feis Ceoil and wins. On this occasion he hears folk song arrangements of Charles Villiers Stanford and others for the first time. At the 1901 Feis Ceoil, he again wins a prize, this time for a large cantata, The Red Hand of Ulster. In 1914, his wife, Mary Reavy, dies.

In 1919, Hardebeck becomes the director of the music school in Cork and becomes the first professor of Irish music at University College Cork (UCC) in 1922. Ill-suited for administrative tasks, he relinquishes the post after one year and returns to Belfast, which after the Irish Civil War has become the capital of Northern Ireland. In 1932, he finally settles in Dublin, where he works for An Gúm, the Irish government publisher, as arranger of Irish traditional songs for piano and choirs, many of which become teaching material at schools in the nascent Republic of Ireland. He also teaches Irish and traditional music in the Dublin Municipal School of Music for two years. On many occasions he acts as adjudicator in singing and musical competitions across Ireland.

Despite Hardebeck’s mixed German/Welsh/English background, the events of the 1913 Dublin lock-out, the outbreak of World War I, and the 1916 Easter Rising radicalise him, turning him into an Irish nationalist. He is quoted as saying, “I believe in God, Beethoven and Patrick Pearse.” He studies the Irish language and collects folk songs from around the country, making some unique arrangements that bridge the gap between traditional and art song.

At home in Dublin, Hardebeck plays his excellent arrangements of Irish melodies on a Schiedmayer harmonium. The instrument has a “percussion” stop, which he uses to great effect. He also owns a Knauss piano but plays the harmonium by choice. He is quite an authority on plainchant. The noted Irish harpsichord maker Cathal Gannon is a close friend of his for many years. Hardebeck teaches him how to appreciate the structure of the classical symphony and concerto and passes on his enthusiasm and love of Irish melodies.

Following Hardebeck’s death at his home, 14 St. Vincent Street, Berkeley Road, Dublin, on February 10, 1945, a Radio Éireann-sponsored symphony concert, held in the Capitol Theatre in Dublin, begins with a sympathetic performance of his orchestral variations upon Seoithín Seó. A state funeral is held in Saint Joseph’s Church, Berkeley Road, Dublin. The church is packed; various government ministers, the Lord Mayor and representatives of President Douglas Hyde and of Éamon de Valera are there. Hardebeck’s own Kyrie and Agnus Dei are performed at the Requiem Mass. He is interred in Glasnevin Cemetery, where a Benedictus is chanted by the clergy present. A vote of sympathy is issued by the Irish National League of the Blind to Hardebeck’s widow and relatives, in which the hope is expressed “that the nation as a whole would not be unmindful of the important contribution which the late Dr. Hardebeck had made to Irish culture, music and art.”

Unfortunately, very little attention has been given to Hardebeck, who is one of the instigators in the revival of Irish music. Indeed, he is largely forgotten after his death. This is possibly due to his mixed origins and place of birth. His arrangement for orchestra of The Lark in the Clear Air is a fine piece of music, but he is content to sell it to the music publishers Boosey & Hawkes for just six guineas.

In June 2013, a plaque to Hardebeck’s memory is installed at Holy Family Church, Belfast.

(Pictured: “Carl Hardebeck (1869-1945),” oil on canvas, National Museums NI)


by Leave a comment

Death of John Havelock Nelson, Composer & Conductor

John Havelock Nelson, composer and conductor, dies in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 5, 1996. He makes an immense contribution to the development of the cultural life of the province – and beyond – over the second half of the 20th century.

Nelson is born of middle-class parents in Cork, County Cork, on May 25, 1917, his distinctive forename being taken from a cousin of his mother who lost his life in World War I. Despite his birthplace, both his parents’ ancestral roots lie firmly in Northern Ireland.

Nelson’s father Robert comes from Larne, County Antrim, where he was raised. However, the early years of his mother Grace are quite eventful. She is born in the Belgian Congo on account of her father’s placement there as a missionary in the latter years of the 19th century (his family hail from Tobermore, County Londonderry). She is eventually sent home at an early age, due to the threat of malaria, and is raised in Belfast by an aunt and uncle who have no family of their own. It appears that Nelson inherits his musical genes from both parents. Although his father is trained as a chartered accountant, he is a capable baritone singer who studies in the early 1900s with C. J. Brennan, later to become the organist and choirmaster at St. Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast). Meanwhile, his mother shows talent as a pianist during her upbringing in her adopted city and by her early 20s is offering her services as an accompanist.

By chance, this is how his parents meet. They marry in 1916, shortly before their arrival in Cork where Robert takes up his first accountancy job. Within a month of Nelson’s birth, the family moves to Dublin where his father has secured a better post, eventually settling near Dún Laoghaire, just south of the capital city. From the age of five, now the eldest of four brothers born a year apart, he starts piano lessons and makes such rapid progress that, by the age of ten, he is able to play in a piano trio and to accompany his father in informal concerts. By the age of twelve, he wins a scholarship to the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin, giving him the opportunity to study piano and theory and helping him to establish his core musical skills. Soon he adds conducting and organ lessons to his study programme.

As far as Nelson’s general education is concerned, this is completed at St. Andrew’s College, Dublin, where he excels in English, history and the sciences. By his late teens, he is determined to pursue a professional career as a musician. His father, however, exercises caution in this regard, advising him to take a science degree in the first instance. Consequently, he gains entry to Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1935 to read Natural Science, then makes a decision the following year to change to Medical Science. By 1939, he completes his primary degree in Medical Science, leading to doctoral research in bacteriology. At the same time, he begins a 4-year music degree at TCD while remaining musically active outside the university in relation to his piano studies, and also co-founds and conducts the Dublin Orchestral Players, a body that continues to provide an invaluable platform for amateur performers. He completes his university studies in 1943, graduating with a PhD in Medical Science and a primary Music degree. Seven years later he also completes a doctorate in Music from the same university.

His university career now behind him, like many fellow Irishmen, Nelson feels a desire to contribute to the World War II effort and applies for a commission in the medical branch of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1944. Eventually, he is called up and located at RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire, where he remains until after the end of the War, only returning to Dublin for his marriage in 1945. By nature, an outgoing, sociable person, he wastes no time in immersing himself in music-making activities when off duty, both inside and outside his RAF base. It is during this immediate post-war period that he becomes convinced that he wants to pursue a career in music. By chance, his attention is drawn to a BBC advertisement regarding a number of regional posts for staff accompanists, including Northern Ireland. His application is successful, and he reports for duty at BBC Northern Ireland in March 1947, where he remains for the next 30 years. In his new post, his main role is to play and accompany on the piano. To this end, he becomes involved in a number of new radio programmes, notably Children’s Hour. Elsewhere, he composes and arranges music for adult dramas and serials, the best known being The McCooeys. Another responsibility is to assist in auditioning local musicians for broadcasting opportunities, a process that uncovers much local talent, including a young James Galway. While his activities revolve around radio work in the 1950s, the next 20 years embrace opportunities arising from the new medium of television, including the popular Songs of Praise which involve him as conductor.

Nelson’s decision to retire from the BBC in 1977 enables him to focus fully on his free-lance career which had been running parallel, up until then, with his broadcasting work. In this capacity he is able to give full rein to his diverse range of musical skills as choral and orchestral conductor, chamber musician, music-festival adjudicator, composer and arranger. One should not overlook his role as animateur in founding the Studio Symphony Orchestra (1947) and the Studio Opera Group (1950). Both became integral parts of the local cultural scene during Nelson’s lifetime. His contribution as a festival adjudicator is an important activity, notably when undertaking tours abroad, including to Canada and the Caribbean. His visits to the latter area lead him to form the Trinidad and Tobago Opera Company shortly after his BBC retirement. In his busy lifestyle, he makes time to satisfy his creative energy as a composer and arranger. In total he publishes over 100 pieces, many inspired by his love of Irish traditional song and are of short duration and scored for a variety of vocal combinations. His enjoyment of his reputation as a piano accompanist of international standing is confirmed by his association with some of the leading Irish and British professional singers of the period, including Bernadette Greevy (soprano), Margaret Marshall (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor) and Ian Wallace (bass-baritone).

During his lifetime, Nelson’s outstanding services to music, both inside and outside the province, are recognised by a number of awards. The first of these is an OBE in 1966, followed in the latter part of his life by four honorary doctorates, three from local universities. A gifted and versatile musician, his personality is described by one colleague as “magnetic”- he has the unique ability to reach out to everybody irrespective of their age, status and position in life in whatever role he performs. In his best-known role as a conductor, a critic says of him that, “Dr. Nelson has a remarkable touch in getting people to do what he wants in the pleasantest way possible.” His vision and determination help to establish a vibrant music culture throughout Northern Ireland, an achievement that will remain his lasting legacy.

Nelson is survived by his three children and eight grandchildren; his wife Hazel having predeceased him in 1983.

(From: “John Havelock Nelson (1917-1996),” Dictionary of Ulster Biography, http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Evelyn Gleeson, Designer & Co-founder of Dun Emer Press

Evelyn Gleeson, English embroidery, carpet, and tapestry designer, is born on May 15, 1855, in Knutsford, Cheshire, England. Along with Elizabeth and Lily Yeats, she establishes the Dun Emer Press.

Gleeson is the daughter of Irish-born Edward Moloney Gleeson, a medical doctor, and Harriet (née Simpson), from Bolton, Lancashire. Her father has a practice in Knutsford but on a trip to Ireland he is struck by the poverty and unemployment and, with the advice of his brother-in-law, a textile manufacturer in Lancashire, he founds the Athlone Woollen Mills in 1859, investing all his money in the project. The family moves to Athlone in 1863, but Gleeson is educated in England, where she trains as a teacher. She later studies portraiture in London at the Atelier Ludovici from 1890–92. She goes on to study design with Alexander Millar, a follower of William Morris, who believes she has an exceptional aptitude for colour-blending. Many of her designs are bought by the exclusive Templeton Carpets of Glasgow.

Gleeson takes a keen interest in Irish affairs and, as a member of the Gaelic League and the Irish Literary Society, mixes with the Yeats family and the Irish artistic circle in London and is inspired by the Gaelic revival in art and literature. She is also involved in the suffrage movement and is chairwoman of the Pioneer Club, a women’s club in London. In 1900, an opportunity arises to make a practical contribution to the Irish renaissance and the emancipation of Irish women. She is suffering from ill-health, but her friend Augustine Henry, botanist and linguist, suggests she move away from the London smog to Ireland and open a craft centre with his financial assistance. She seizes the opportunity and discusses her plans with her friends the Yeats sisters, Elizabeth and Lily, who are talented craftswomen and have direct contact with William Morris and his followers. They have no money to contribute to the venture but are enthusiastic and can offer their skills and provide contacts. She seeks advice from W. B. and Jack Yeats, from Henry, who loans her £500, and from her cousin, T. P. Gill, secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.

During the summer of 1902 Gleeson finds a suitable house in Dundrum, County Dublin, ten minutes from the railway station. The house, originally called Runnymede, is renamed Dun Emer, after the wife of Cú-Chulainn, renowned for her craft skills. The printing press arrives in November 1902, and soon three craft industries are in operation. Lily Yeats runs the embroidery section, since she had trained with Morris’s daughter May. Elizabeth Yeats operates the press, having learned printing at the Women’s Printing Society in London. Gleeson manages the weaving and tapestry and looks after the financial affairs of the industries. W. B. Yeats acts as literary adviser, an arrangement that often causes friction, and Gleeson’s sister, Constance McCormack, is also involved.

Local girls are employed and trained, and the industries seek to use the best of Irish materials to make beautiful, high-quality, lasting products of original design. Church patronage accounts for most of their orders and, in 1902–03, Loughrea cathedral commissions twenty-four embroidered banners portraying Irish saints. They also make vestments, traditional dresses, drapes, cushions and other items, all beautifully crafted and mostly employing Celtic design. The first book published is In the Seven Woods (1903), by W. B. Yeats, cased in full Irish linen.

Gleeson is in demand as an adjudicator in craft competitions around the country and at Feis na nGleann in 1904 she praises the workmanship of the entries but is critical of the lack of teaching in design. She gives lectures and tries to raise the status of craftwork from household occupation to competitive industry. There are tensions with the Yeats sisters, who complain that she is bad-tempered and arrogant. In truth she had taken on too much of a financial burden, even with the support of grants, and she is anxious to repay her debt to Augustine Henry, which he is prepared to forego. The sisters snub her and omit her name in an interview about Dun Emer in the magazine House Beautiful. Millar, her design teacher in London, likens the omission to Hamlet without the prince. In 1904, it is decided to split the industries on a cooperative basis: Dun Emer Guild Ltd. under Gleeson and Dun Emer Industries Ltd. under the Yeats sisters.

Work continues, and the guild and industries exhibit separately at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and other craft competitions. In 1907, the National Museum of Ireland commissions a copy of a Flemish tapestry. It takes far longer than anticipated to complete, but the result is beautiful and is exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland in 1910. The guild wins a silver medal at the Milan International exhibition in 1906. The guild and industries both show work at the New York exhibition of 1908. The guild alone shows work in Boston. By now cooperation has turned to rivalry, and there is a final split as the Yeats sisters leave, taking the printing press with them to their house in Churchtown, Dublin. Gleeson writes off a debt of £185 owed to her, on condition that they do not use the name Dun Emer.

The business thrives at Dundrum, with her niece Katherine (Kitty) MacCormack and Augustine Henry’s niece, May Kerley, assisting with design. Later they move the workshops to Hardwicke Street, Dublin. In 1909, Gleeson becomes one of the first members of the Guild of Irish Art Workers and is made master in 1917. The Irish Women Workers’ Union commissions a banner from her about 1919, and, among numerous other notable successes, a Dun Emer carpet is presented to Pope Pius XI in 1932, the year of the Eucharistic Congress of Dublin.

Gleeson dies at the age of 89 at Dun Emer on February 20, 1944, with Kitty carrying on the Guild after her death. The final home of Dun Emer is a shop on Harcourt Street, Dublin, which finally closes in 1964.

(From: “Gleeson, Evelyn” by Ruth Devine, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Seóirse Bodley, Composer & Associate Professor of Music at UCD

Seóirse Bodley, Irish composer and former associate professor of music at University College Dublin (UCD), is born George Pascal Bodley in Dublin on April 4, 1933. In 2008, he is the first composer to become a Saoi of Aosdána. He is widely regarded as one of the most important composers of twentieth-century art music in Ireland, having been “integral to Irish musical life since the second half of the twentieth century, not just as a composer, but also as a teacher, arranger, accompanist, adjudicator, broadcaster, and conductor.”

Bodley’s father is George James Bodley (1879–1956), an employee in the Dublin office of the London Midland & Scottish Railway Company, and later of the Ports and Docks Board. His mother, Mary (née Gough, 1891–1977), works for the Guinness Brewery. He attends schools in the Dublin suburbs of Phibsborough and Glasnevin before he moves at the age of nine to an Irish-speaking Christian Brothers school at Parnell Square. He later studies at the School of Commerce in Rathmines, where he obtains his Leaving Certificate.

Music is encouraged in his parents’ home, and Bodley receives initial lessons on the mandolin from his father and on the piano from his mother. He studies the piano, harmony and counterpoint at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and obtains a Licentiate in piano from Trinity College London (TCL). From the age of 13, he also enrolls for a time at the Brendan Smith Academy of Acting. While he is still at school, he receives his first lessons in composition privately from the Dublin-based German choral conductor Hans Waldemar Rosen (1904–94), which continues, on and off, until 1956. From his student days he performs as an accompanist to singers and takes part in chamber music performances. An important element in his musical education is the twice-weekly free concerts given by the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra in the Phoenix Hall, Dame Court, where he has the opportunity to hear leading Irish and international performers and conductors presenting both classics and modern repertory.

From 1952 Bodley studies for a Bachelor of Music degree from University College Dublin, mainly with Anthony Hughes. He obtains the degree in 1955. From 1957 to 1959 he studies composition (with Johann Nepomuk David) and conducting at the Württembergische Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, Germany, and a year later he obtains a Doctorate in Music from UCD. He also takes classes in conducting with Hans Müller-Kray and Karl Maria Zwißler, and in piano with Alfred Kreutz. He returns to Germany several times in the early 1960s to participate in courses at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, which significantly expands his knowledge of avant-garde techniques.

From 1959 until his retirement in 1998, Bodley lectures at the university’s music department, becoming associate professor in 1984. During the 1960s, he is conductor of the Culwick Choral Society.

Bodley’s development as a composer sees several distinct phases. In the 1970s he merges avant-garde styles with elements from Irish traditional music and becomes a figure of national importance. He receives several prestigious commissions for large-scale works, such as Symphony No. 3 (1981), written for the opening of the National Concert Hall.

In 1982 Bodley becomes a founder-member of Aosdána and President Mary McAleese confers the distinction of Saoi on him in November 2008. McAleese says that Bodley “has helped us to recast what it means to be an artist in Ireland.”


by Leave a comment

Death of A. J. Potter, Irish Composer & Teacher

Archibald James (Archie) Potter, Irish composer and teacher who writes hundreds of works including operas, a mass, and four ballets, as well as orchestral and chamber music, dies suddenly in Greystones, County Wicklow, on July 5, 1980.

Potter is born in Belfast on September 22, 1918, to a Presbyterian family who, oddly, lives on the Falls Road, a republican (Catholic) stronghold. His father is a church organist and piano tuner who has been blind since childhood. His mother is, in Potter’s own words, “a raging alcoholic.” He escapes a rather grim childhood when he goes to live with an aunt in Kent, England.

Possessed of a good voice and natural musical ability, Potter is accepted as a treble by the world-famous choir of All Saints, Margaret Street. In 1933, after four years as a chorister, he is sent to Clifton College, Bristol. From there he goes to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship and studies composition under Vaughan Williams. While at the Royal College he wins the Cobbett prize for chamber music.

World War II interrupts Potter’s music education, and he leaves college to serve with the London Irish Rifles in Europe and the Far East. After the war he settles in Dublin, where he continues his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, gaining a Doctorate in Music in 1953.

Potter had already started composing chamber and vocal music before the war. Now, established in Dublin, he chooses the orchestra as his principal means of expression. His early pieces, such as Rhapsody under a High Sky and Overture to a Kitchen Comedy, show that he has absorbed Vaughan Williams’ pastoral style and his love of folk music. In 1952, both pieces are awarded Radio Éireann‘s “Carolan Prize” for orchestral composition by the adjudicator Arnold Bax. A year later Potter repeats this success when his Concerto da Chiesa, a concerto for piano and orchestra, also wins the Carolan Prize.

In 1955 Potter is appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he becomes an effective administrator and inspiring teacher.

In the 1960s, Potter turns to ballet, writing four orchestral scores for the Cork Ballet company. The first of these, Careless Love, becomes the composer’s own favourite of all his compositions. Several years later, following a successful battle with alcoholism, he writes what some regard as his magnum opus, Sinfonia “de Profundis” (1969). The première is given at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin on March 23, 1969, in a performance by the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Albert Rosen. The Irish Times refers to the concert as a “major national event.” In December 1969, he receives a Jacob’s Award for the composition.

Potter’s last substantial work, an opera entitled The Wedding, receives its first public performance in Dublin in 1981, almost a year after his death.

Potter dies suddenly at his home in Greystones, County Wicklow on July 5, 1980, at the age of 61. He is buried in the nearby Redford cemetery.


by Leave a comment

Birth of A. J. Potter, Composer & Teacher

Archibald James (Archie) Potter, Irish composer and teacher who writes hundreds of works including operas, a mass, and four ballets, as well as orchestral and chamber music, is born in Belfast on September 22, 1918.

Potter is born to a Presbyterian family who, oddly, lives on the Falls Road, a republican (Catholic) stronghold. His father is a church organist and piano tuner who has been blind since childhood. His mother is, in Potter’s own words, “a raging alcoholic.” He escapes a rather grim childhood when he goes to live with an aunt in Kent, England.

Possessed of a good voice and natural musical ability, Potter is accepted as a treble by the world-famous choir of All Saints, Margaret Street. In 1933, after four years as a chorister, he is sent to Clifton College, Bristol. From there he goes to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship and studies composition under Vaughan Williams. While at the Royal College he wins the Cobbett prize for chamber music.

World War II interrupts Potter’s music education, and he leaves college to serve with the London Irish Rifles in Europe and the Far East. After the war he settles in Dublin, where he continues his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, gaining a Doctorate in Music in 1953.

Potter had already started composing chamber and vocal music before the war. Now, established in Dublin, he chooses the orchestra as his principal means of expression. His early pieces, such as Rhapsody under a High Sky and Overture to a Kitchen Comedy, show that he has absorbed Vaughan Williams’ pastoral style and his love of folk music. In 1952, both pieces are awarded Radio Éireann‘s “Carolan Prize” for orchestral composition by the adjudicator Arnold Bax. A year later Potter repeats this success when his Concerto da Chiesa, a concerto for piano and orchestra, also wins the Carolan Prize.

In 1955 Potter is appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he becomes an effective administrator and inspiring teacher.

In the 1960s, Potter turns to ballet, writing four orchestral scores for the Cork Ballet company. The first of these, Careless Love, becomes the composer’s own favourite of all his compositions. Several years later, following a successful battle with alcoholism, he writes what some regard as his magnum opus, Sinfonia “de Profundis” (1969). The première is given at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin on March 23, 1969 in a performance by the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Albert Rosen. The Irish Times refers to the concert as a “major national event.” In December 1969, he receives a Jacob’s Award for the composition.

Potter’s last substantial work, an opera entitled The Wedding, receives its first public performance in Dublin in 1981, almost a year after his death.

Potter dies suddenly at his home in Greystones, County Wicklow on July 5, 1980, at the age of 61. He is buried in the nearby Redford cemetery.