Death, my Bride
Soul Noir would like to sincerely thank Dublin City Council Arts Office for their support and RTÉ Supporting the Arts for their support also.
Core festival October 31st - November 1st
October 31st 6 - 9pm Get your tickets here.
November 1st 1pm - 8pm (no tickets needed)
Location: Irish Georgian Societies City Assembly House, 58 South William Street Dublin 2
Agenda:
October 31st, 6 - 9pm
Throughout the night: A selection of diverse dark, alternative and Gothic art works from artists of the scene and works relating to death from Irish and international artists in a highly focused showcase.
6.15 - 6.50 pm: Dancer and Singer Eriko Uehara will perform a special commission and interpret the final scene from Strauss’ opera Salome inspired by Oscar Wilde’s original work. Uehara will design a fusion of Irish and Japanese culture into this performance which is of great meaning to us here at Soul Noir.
7-720pm: Celebrated punk poet and writer Dave Lordan will read from his memoir, The Dead Friends. Lordan will also read his celebrated poem Cureheads.
7.30-8.30pm: Soprano Sandra Oman will perform Dying for Love with pianist David Wray in a special concert for Soul Noir’s audiences.
8:50pm: Featuring Best in Show, Best Emerging Artist and the Dark Heart Award. Have your say and vote for Audience Favourite (announced on November 2nd). Featuring guest speaker Giovanni Giusti.
High end Gothic attire is highly encouraged, there is an award for 'Best Dressed'. All proceeds of ticket sales will be split between a women's refuge (name protected) and the Blue Cross. Get your tickets here.
November 1st, 1 - 8pm
1- 8pm – Enjoy the beauty and tragedy of a spectacular array of Gothic fine art reflective of our theme Death, my Bride.
1 – 2pm – Our annual presentation by the wonderful writing collective, The Hardliners. Come for tea and brack as we listen to the specially commissioned works reflective of the theme of death. The presentation will be dedicated in loving memory of John O'Brien.
2.30 – 3.30pm - Tactile tour with curator Sinéad Keogh. A sensory tour designed for people with visual impairments. The group will have a spoken word history on the artworks and artists in the programme followed by tea and brack.
6.30 – 7.30pm – a Swan Song performance from renowned cellist Ailbhe McDonagh to sing us into our final slumber. Oh, la cygne! Ma trés chére...
Location: Irish Georgian Societies City Assembly House, 58 South William Street Dublin 2
Please find a link to the 2024 catalogue here
The 2024 programme artists are listed below:
Ailbhe McDonagh
Swan Song (2024)
Live cello performance 6.30 - 7.30pm November 1st.
Ailbhe's performance at this year's festival will celebrate the last Soul Noir Festival by creating a performance based around the idea of the Swan Song. The cello is famous for a piece by French composer Saint-Saens called 'The Swan'. Villa Lobos also composed a piece for the cello called 'The Song of the Black Swan'. Using both of these pieces as material at the opening, Ailbhe will create an improvised performance of around 40 minutes signifying the ending of the final Soul Noir festival.
Artist Bio:
Ailbhe McDonagh has earned international recognition as both a soloist and chamber musician. According to Fanfare Magazine, “she plays with flawless technique, faultless intonation, and a strong yet meltingly sweet tone”. She has released 4 recordings of her classical music on the cello and also numerous other recordings of her own compositions. Ailbhe performs in many other styles alongside her classical performances. She has performed at Soul Noir previously and has collaborated with artists Fergus Byrne and Pauline Cummins.
Follow the artist at her website, Facebook and Instagram
Breda Lynch
AIDS is not over (2016 - 2021)
Cyanotype print/Digital print
Kindly on loan from the IMMA Collection: Purchase, 2021.
Artist Bio:
An artist born in Kilkenny and living in Limerick City, is a visual artist working in a variety of media, including drawing, photography, print and digital media, video and installation. She engages with dialogues and discourses on - queer feminisms, the western mystery tradition and occulture, appropriation and the economy of the image.
Lynch has exhibited extensively in Ireland and abroad. International exhibitions include curated group exhibitions in the UK, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Thailand, China, USA and Australia.
Solo exhibitions in Ireland include:
’If Your Not Scared The Atomic Bomb Is Not Interesting’, Source Arts Centre, Thurles (2024). ‘Blue Dyke’ Ormston House 2020-21, ’Witch and Lezzie’, Ashford Gallery RHA (2017) Dublin, ‘Fragments of a Lost Civilisation’, Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar (2016), ’The Pit and Other Stories’ , at Siamsa Tire Gallery, Tralee (2014), ’Thursday’s Clinic’ , 126 Gallery, Galway (2013), ‘Strangelove’, Black Mariah, Triskel, Cork (2010),’Song to the Siren’, Galway Arts Centre (2009), ‘Place of the Crows’ and ‘Fleurs Fatales’, Context Gallery Derry (2007) and ‘Dark Brides and Silent Twins’ Limerick City Gallery of Art (2006).
Her work is represented in a number of public and private collections including IMMA, The Arts Council of Ireland, OPW – Office of Public Works, Meta Open Arts Dublin, The Women’s Library Glasgow, NUIG Collection – Galway, Luciano Benetton Italy, Trinity College Art Collection, National Library of Ireland, Library Project Dublin, Limerick City Gallery Collection, University of Limerick Collection, Hunt Museum Limerick.
In 2024 Lynch presented her work ‘Cake Bomb’, at the 24th Sydney Biennale Australia, titled ‘Ten Thousand Suns’. This was in partnership with IMMA and Culture Ireland.
Follow the artist at her website and X.
Conor Connolly
When We Meet Again In Hell (2024)
oil on canvas board
The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let
go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away.
But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So
the way he sees it, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're
holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away.
-Jacob's Ladder, Director Adrian Lyne (1990)
Artist Bio:
I'm a self-taught artist, based in Dublin, with professional
experience in Graphic Design and Publishing. My academic background
includes Literature, Classics, and Psychology. Aside from artistic and
academic pursuits, I have also been active in the Dublin dark
alternative music scene, as DJ and club promoter/organiser, since the
90s. I draw inspiration from books, music, movies, mythology, the
weirder aspects of the natural world, other artists, or whichever of a
hundred random things resonates at any given moment.
Follow the artist at his Instagram and Facebook.
Daire Lynch
Sleep Sweet (2024)
oil on canvas
It was late August. We had spent the previous day on horseback going up Mount Vesuvius followed by a sweltering walk around Pompeii. Decisions were made - we needed something slower paced ,somewhere where the air didn't burn your lungs with the heat. We decided on Cimitero Delle Fontanelle. To perambulate here was a joy. Calm. Cool. Nothing morbid yet a stark reminder of mortality. I met these three fellows as a I turned a corner. The coins that lay near are gifts and offerings. The Coin on top of his skull I gifted. Sleep sweet my friends.
Artist Bio:
Dáíre Lynch is a representational figurative artist born in Dublin, Ireland though now resides in West Cork. .He trained as a sound engineer before focusing his primary creative output in oil painting.
With a boundless reverence for life and the human form, he has birthed a world where the nuances of humanity are brought to the forefront and propose an emotive journey to the viewer. When not painting or creating, he can be found in the wilds, be it woods, lakes, or the powerful Atlantic Ocean. Ever drawn to the savage beauty of the Atlantic waters, West Cork is where he found softened sand and vigourous salted winds to allow his roots to burrow and anchor him in these tumultous times.
The seascapes are an intrinsic part of his works, a calming playground, feeding both memory and mindfulness.
Follow the artist at his Website, Instagram and Big Cartel.
Dave Lordan
Dave Lordan will read from his memoir, The Dead Friends. Lordan will also read his celebrated poem Cureheads.
Live reading 7 - 7.20pm October 31st.
Five teenagers gather at a party in a bedsit in Dunmanway, West Cork during mushroom season in 1993 – a Curehead, a couple of ravers, a punk and a mod. Only the Curehead – me, Dave Lordan – is left on this Earth in 2018.
Artist Bio:
Dave Lordan is an Irish poet influenced by oral and countercultural traditions including post-punk, Irish rebel music, and the beats.
Find more information about the artist at Literature Ireland.
Dolorosa de la Cruz
Epicentre of Persistence (2024)
Goauche on black paper
Using anagrams and rituals as pathways to navigate
the unknown via the experience of the ecstatic,engenendered from the micro
big bang impact of pigment against paper.
Like fire flies it flickers upon heightened receptors, pareidolia in flux,
confunding our senses.
White on black- an analogue photo-chemical process with the lamp of
Moonlight as fixative.
The night that began in your eyes-
in my soul it was a long night's end:
Here and now we keeep company
on the road of our return.
-Mahmoud Darwish
Artist Bio:
Dolorosa de la Cruz is a visual artist based in Dublin, Ireland and a curator
of the Cabinet of the Solar PLexus Blog. Her art is an ongoing enquiry into
spiritual, magical and esoteric matters through the female sensibility.
Dolorosa work has been exhibited in Dublin, Belfast, London, New York, Los Angeles,
Portland, Cleaveland, Brussels, Poland and Chile. It has also been published in several occult and art journals and books.
in addition to her work as an artist, Dolorosa is active in art education and co-curates with Gallery X.
Follow the artist on her Instagram.
Ellen Rogers Kingston
Untitled (‘In Loving Memory’) 1901
Watercolour on Paper
In
loving Memory
of [the artist]
Ellen Rogers Kingston
Elder Daughter of
Richard Paul Kingston
Fortfield House Rathmines
Entered into Rest 30 May 1929.
Artist Bio:
These works (there are two works in a private collection) were purchased and restored in 2023. Through research, many details of this obscure artist were uncovered which piece together a story of the artist’s life told through surviving civil, church and burial records. While these records present a drawing of facts – where she was born, where she resided, where she died and where she was buried – none of these records reference her work as an artist, amateur or otherwise. Despite this, 100 years later these works survive her, and live on to sustain how she is and will be remembered with a legacy as an artist who was skilled and admired in her field.
Ellen Rogers Kingston was born 2nd June 1880 at 12 Bloomfield Avenue, Portobello to Richard and Mary Lane Kingston, namesake of her paternal grandmother, Ellen Kingston of Bandon (1816 - 1900). At the time of the second painting, the 1901 census notes Kingston, now aged 20, as a scholar, a term defined in census guidelines as a child or young person attending school or receiving regular instruction at home. By 1911, Kingston, now 29, was a Bookkeeper. At the time of her death in 1929, Kingston’s death certificate records her as a spinster of with a ‘Rank, Profession, or Occupation’, of Independent Means.
The above epitaph transposes the words described and inscribed on Kingston’s gravestone, with the posthumous addition of ‘the artist’, as a reflection of how she [the artist] will continue to be remembered. 125 years later, both works now hang in a residence at the top of the street in Portobello, Dublin where the artist was born.
Eriko Uehara
Salome (2024)
Live dance performance 6.15 - 6.50pm October 31st.
The tale of Salome has always been the object of fascination, particularly among artists and their audiences. Oscar Wilde’s stage adaptation, originally published in French, was described as being “full of elaborate and ornate verses. The colours, the stars, the birds, the rare gems…it has almost all the quality of poem, the prose is as musical and fluid as verses, full of images and metaphors.”
German composer Richard Strauss, inspired by Wilde’s “Salome”, brought this tale to the next level in his 1905 opera. The music deftly reflects and elevates Salome’s burning desire for the prophet Yokanaan, and the sordid elements of the tale; her seductive dance for King Herod, and the reward of Yokanaan’s head on a silver platter. The final scene of Salome’s monologue/aria starts with “the most sickening chord in all opera”, “epoch-making dissonance with which takes Salome…to the depth of degradation, and the quintessence of decadence; here is ecstasy falling in upon itself, crumbling into the abyss.” (Craig Ayrey)
In this performance, Uehara performs the final scene from the Opera “Salome,” creating her own interpretation of Salome’s love and desire by incorporating elements of Japanese culture and aesthetics.
“I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan! There was a bitter bitter taste on thy red lips. Was it the taste of blood? Nay! This is the taste of love…”
Artist Bio:
Eriko Uehara is a singer/dancer/actor from Okinawa, Japan. She studied classical singing from early childhood and later at the University of the Ryukyus. She then studied drama, dance and singing at the renowned Shiki Theatre acting institute in Tokyo. She also studied Traditional Ryukyuan (Okinawan) dance under Japanese national treasure Fusako Shida. Her versatile style of dance and singing are deep rooted to her indigenous culture.Eriko has been performing as a singer, dancer, actor and musical director since moving to Ireland. She has recently begun to collaborate with other multimedia artists to expand her experience and expertise as a performer. She received a Music Bursary Award for her vocal soundscape project in 2023 from the Arts Council of Ireland.
Follow the artist at her Instagram
Ferdinando Adiletta
Chaos, Night and Darkness (2024)
oil on canvas
Chaos, Night and Darkness is an allegory based on the myth where Chaos gives birth to their two daughters, Night and Darkness.
Artist Bio:
I am a visual artist with a focus on traditional and digital painting. I grew up among nature, art and music, getting inspiration from what physically surrounds me. I am fascinated by the artistic currents of Surrealism and Impressionism as well as by Occultism and Esotericism. The symbolism of these disciplines with the seduction that arises from blending attributes of beauty and macabre convey to my work elements of mysticism and darkness. Studying as an illustrator and working with digital painting as a Concept Artist and Art Director for the animation industry, taught me about the importance of storytelling, a way to explore allegoric narratives deeply. I see Art as a subversive tool that can unwrap us from the material world of the ego-driven consciousness, a ritual to celebrate the energies of Life.
Follow the artist at his website.
Gubu Dolls
The Doc's Reliquary (2016)
plaster, wood, bone, found objects and felt
I'm making a novel out of physical objects.(The Gubudolls shrine at Gallery X ) in the story. The doc (whose death mask features prominently in the selected piece for Soul Noir) has developed a telepathic internet which allows the Gubu Doll's to escape death and live immortally in the internet. But at what price?
Artist Bio:
GUBU MAN, anonymous artist, was a writer and playwright for 20 years, until a rare and severe L.E.D light sensitivity struck him at the age of 39, preventing him from using all types of screens, computers and smartphones. Exiled from the digital world and isolated in his own space, everything from walking down the streets of Dublin facing lights from cars and stores, to keeping in touch with friends, became a daily struggle. The worst blow of them all was the inability to write, but creation found its way. “I became driven by a tactile need to create with my hands. While The Gubu Saga is not specifically about my story, I did, as an actor would, pour my own experience into the object I was making, while in character.”
Follow the artist at his website , Instagram or visit his permanent installation at GalleryX.
Gwen Stevenson
Memorial/UnMemorial (2024)
Film (16:9) with Sound
Stevenson’s film "Memorial/UnMemorial" marks the 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement through a year-long durational performance. From February 14, 2023, to February 14, 2024, Stevenson crossed the UK/Ireland Border daily, reciting the names and ages of those killed during the Troubles on their anniversaries.
The work questions the necessity of collective memorials, reflecting on Northern Ireland's complex legacy. The film, featuring daily footage and a poignant soundtrack, invites viewers to engage at their own pace, fostering deep reflection on remembrance and reconciliation.
Artist Bio:
Gwen Stevenson is a visual and performance artist based in Northern Ireland. Her work explores the impermanence and fragility of life, focusing on themes of place, memory, and identity, particularly as they relate to the legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict and the challenges posed by the climate emergency. Stevenson's multidisciplinary practice spans site-specific installations, art and technology, durational performances, and participatory art. Her educational background combines artistic and technological expertise, including a BA (First Class Hons) in Fine Art from the University of Ulster and advanced degrees in engineering and organizational psychology from Trinity College Dublin and the University of London, Birkbeck. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, with notable solo exhibitions such as "Memorial/UnMemorial" at Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery in 2024 and "Infinite Mass" at Millennium Court Arts Centre in Portadown. Stevenson also represented Ireland at Estudio Abierto, Buenos Aires, South America's premier contemporary arts festival.
Her projects often involve significant community engagement, collaborating with diverse partners including local councils, public health initiatives, and various publicly funded organizations and charities across Northern Ireland. This socially engaged approach encompasses public health, arts in health, regeneration, peace-building, arts and disability, youth arts, community arts, arts for older people, and intercultural arts initiatives. Consequently, her work includes public art pieces, events, exhibitions, site-specific installations, short films, and publications. Stevenson has received numerous accolades, including the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Individual Digital Evolution Award, Future Screens Narrative Futures Award, ACNI Support for the Individual Artist, and the Invest NI Innovation Award. Her works are held in public collections such as the National Museum NI and Health & Social Care Trusts. In addition to her solo work, Stevenson is an active member of artist collectives and creative arts groups like Shore Collective and Think Ecos, underscoring her commitment to collaborative and socially engaged art practices. Her ongoing projects delve into the intersection of technology and art, exploring how contemporary society grapples with environmental issues, public memory, and identity amidst ecological change.
Follow the artist at her website, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.
Jessica Checkley
Levithan (2024)
bronze and marble
In this piece Jessica explores the description of ‘The Leviathan’ as a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. The Leviathan is often an embodiment of chaos and threatening to eat the damned after their life.
Artist Bio:
Jessica’s sculpture is intricate and detailed. The context of her work is inspired by film, mythology and science fiction. Her style can be described as a mix of the surreal and the macabre that both intrigues and fascinates people.
Jessica was born and is still living in Dublin, Ireland. Jessica completed her Degree in 3D design, model making and digital arts in 2019 and during her time there she learned to work with a wide variety of materials and tools. This combined with the skills and knowledge she has gained as a wax work technician and mold maker in bronze art Ireland has influenced the work she creates today.
Follow the artist at her website and Instagram
Lady Lavinia Ravenswood
THE VAST STRUCTURE OF RECOLLECTION WITHIN OUR EMOTIONAL MOVEMENT OF MEMORY (2024)
Perfume
Lady Lavinia explores the powerful role ' Scent ' , in it's ethereal nature plays in our psyche into the transformation of our consciousness..past present and future.I would like to invite the viewer to think about scent not as a physical product but as unseen 'spirits' shifting and pervading our memories but remaining invisible. What type of scent evokes your sense of self more than another ? Does scent awaken your moment of memory ?Scent gives us insights into our relationship with solitude and sex, a direct path to the soul. .It connects with our internal states of consciousness..emotions and fantasies. Predating it's use as a cosmetic the oldest role of scent was it's use in ritual in life and death, a vehicle to the realm of the spirit .The Alchemist played a vital role in these rituals. Perfumes were used in for purification, protection, healing , seduction and conquest . Scent ' here not here ..of air ..of substance. Conjoured out of spirit ..preparation for death helping the soul to leave a body . It was the' way of ' kings'. Timeless and universal .
Rose (Rosa) is an aroma of passion and beauty . It's powerful scent said to drive away melancholy and in some traditions used as an aphrodisiac. The odour of Bergamot uplifts and also calms us at the same time .The scent of lillium (Lily) evokes emotions of cleanliness purity. Scent - one of lifes most exquisite pleasures. Scent has inspired ...to inspire after all is literally to breathe in .Perfume has always retained an aura of magic and mystery and No one who becomes immersed in it can fail to be pleasurable changed by the experience. Scent - of matter and spirit. Scent is silent .
Artist Bio:
Lady Lavinia creates artisan fragrances for the discerning individual. Each perfume carefully handcrafted in her home studio using antique utensils on a edwardian perfumers desktop ., Her perfume bottles are individually sourced for the recipient. She offers exquisite antique decanters ,rare crystal bottles , vintage perfume minatures , perfume pendents , vintage pompador neck pieces and much more ...For those who prefer contemporary glassware there is a choice of new travel friendly bottles made from recycled materials. Lady Lavinia ethos is to always offer refilable bottles and refils will always be available to order. . Sustainability is of great important to Lady Lavinia , her intention is to create beautiful unique perfumes combined with offering the recipient a fragrance bottle for life. Lady Lavinias fragrances are crueltyfree and vegan.
Perfume ' One of lifes most exquisite Pleasure's.
As long there has been passion there has been perfume. Perfume has always retained an aura of magic and mystery .lnspired by mystical stories of The spirit of the Alchemist and ' les Secrets De Maistre Alexys' l was fascinated how scent triggered my emotions and imagination . I began teaching myself the art of perfumery and found l could create ethereal fragrances with depth elegance and lasting beauty . Creating one of a kind fragrances is the ultimate experience for both myself and the recipient. I begin your perfume journey by guiding you through my selected range of essences in my studio.Based on your emotional responses to each scent and how each blend reacts to your skin type l then can create a number of samples for you to take with you and venture into your own environment.Each scent reacts differently to ones skin , as does an individual to each scent After this fascinating period the recipient decides on their custom perfume and this becomes your signature scent, and is available exclusively to you .
Bespoke perfumes by appointment
Lady Lavinia offers
Handcrafted gift cards
' One comes , perhaps, upon a flask of memories . In those escaping scent a soul returns to life'
-Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers Of Evil.
Follow the artist at her website and Instagram.
Padraig Byrne
The Mórrígan (2021)
Graphite pencil on paper
This piece is my interpretation of the Irish Goddess The Morrigan, a powerful and important member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ancient Gods of Ireland. The Mórrígan was a goddess of war who often appeared in the form of a crow or raven, this is symbolised by the hybridization of human skulls and crow bodies in my piece. She often appears as part of a trio of goddesses along with Badb and Macha. The shrieking skulls symbolise the Mórrígan’s fierce battle cry and the death it foretold.
Artist Bio:
I am an artist based in Mountmellick, Co Laois. My work examines Irish mythology and early Pagan Ireland, a world full of poetry, magic and a deep connection with nature but also a world of savage battles, of violence and of harsh unforgiving winters.
The process of creating art for me is a spiritual process, allowing me to get closer to our ancestors and the indigenous spirit of our land. I hope in some small way that my art can help keep our stories of the past and the spirit of the ancient Gaels alive.
I work in graphite pencil on paper and my technique involves focusing on very small areas of the piece at a time in order to achieve as much detail as possible. The result is a finish that often resembles a painting rather than a pencil drawing. Human-animal hybridization and interspecies hybridization are often present in my work. I am fascinated by the concept of Pantheism as a part of Paganism, the belief that everything in the world is part of an all encompassing immanent deity, a universal or collective consciousness. This collective consciousness is often portrayed in my work by the merging of human and animal body parts to create human-animal and interspecies hybrids. My drawings also include elements of nature in the form of native plants, leaves, flowers and berries. Our Pagan ancestors had a deep connection with nature, a connection which is all too often lacking in modern society.
I have previously exhibited pieces in the Cairdre Visual Exhibition in The Model Arts Centre, Sligo in July 2017 and in the Soul Noir Festival in Laragh House, Maynooth in October 2019.
Follow the artist at his Instagram.
Sandra Oman and David Wray
Dying for Love, a concert performance by Sandra Oman soprano and David Wray pianist.
7.30 - 8.30pm October 31st.
Over four centuries, the opera is frequently not over until the soprano dies! Tragic love is often the catalyst. The theme of love and death has inspired some of the most enduring, well-loved arias in the operatic canon, and international, award-winning soprano Sandra Oman and pianist David Wray invites the audience on an operatic exploration of this darker side of the artform. Prepare for a three-hankie concert, with songs and arias by Purcell, Bizet, Puccini, and Verdi.
About Sandra Oman:
Dublin-born soprano Sandra Oman was the 2004 recipient of the Margaret Burke Sheridan Memorial Award for excellence in the field of opera. A first-class honours Masters graduate from TU Dublin Conservatoire, Ireland, she has also studied with La Scala soprano Graziella Sciutti and, for many years, Conor Farren. Sandra has performed extensively in opera and concert in Ireland, UK, USA, Italy, Germany, Latvia and Poland, interpreting principal roles in over 40 operas, including Gilda Rigoletto, Mimì and Musetta La Bohème, Liù Turandot, Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro, Elvira Don Giovanni, Despina Così Fan Tutte, Micäela Carmen, First Lady Die Zauberflöte, and Helena A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for companies including Opera Ireland, Lyric Opera, Opera Holland Park, and Longborough Festival Opera. A frequent broadcaster on both television and radio, and an experienced recitalist, she has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and virtually all of Ireland’s major choral societies. With two Number One albums on iTunes to her credit, this multi-faceted performer is also a concert producer and writer, having presented multiple sell-out concerts at the National Concert Hall and nationwide.
Sandra is an Irish Research Council/Government of Ireland Scholar in her final year of PhD research on Giacomo Puccini’s 1893 opera, Manon Lescaut. Awarded the Student Academic Excellence Award for 2020 from TU Dublin Conservatoire, she has presented academic papers at conferences, both nationally and internationally, and has two forthcoming publications in 2024/2025: for the Università di Pavia, and for the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini in Lucca. Sandra is a staff member of the Vocal Faculty of TU Dublin Conservatoire, lecturing in stagecraft.
Follow the artist on her website and Facebook.
About David Wray:
Pianist David Wray trained at Lancaster University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. He has since worked as a pianist and musical director and arranger in the fields of Opera and Musical Theatre. He was Assistant to the director of The English Bach Festival, London, for three years, appearing with them in many productions at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and throughout Europe. David is currently Artistic & Musical Director for Opera in the Open, Dublin, The Three Irish Tenors, The Irish Sopranos, and Druid. David has arranged and produced CDs for American songstress Danna Davis, Ellen McElroy, Nyle Wolfe and Opera in the Open. He arranged and orchestrated a debut album for Simon Morgan – “I’ll be seeing you” which was recorded with the Filharmonic Orchestra, Prague and, most recently, he arranged and directed Sandra Oman’s debut album Liberty, which shot to Number One in the iTunes Vocal Album Charts in November. He is on the staff of American College Dublin’s Irish College of Music Theatre.
Sandra Vida
ELEGY (2010)
Video
Originally created as a reflection on the passing of her mother, Elegy: a meditation on mortality, considers the basic human experience of bodily fragility and the inevitability of death. Moving beyond this inherently melancholy theme, the artist expresses an affirmative engagement with the cycles of life. Centred on the body and featuring a recurring walking figure, Elegy is an abstracted, layered composition that combines live-recorded video with a variety of animation techniques in an evocative and poetic manner. This work has been called painterly, visually stunning, and emotionally rich, and pre-dates many of Vida’s works that examine similar themes.
Artist Bio:
Embracing a time-based, multi-disciplinary approach that explores innovative combinations of media, Sandra Vida has been an important contributor to the coming of age of performance, film and video practices in Canada. She has a background in Psychology and English Literature as well as Art, and has exhibited and presented her inter-media work regionally and internationally. Ongoing interests over her long career include her Celtic/Norse ancestry, spiritual exploration, psychological concepts and poetic text. Performances often involve an activist, feminist impulse and a meditative sensibility. Vida’s most compelling recent work is a series of multi-media installations that include aspects of sculpture, sound, text, video projection, and digital collage. She co-curated (with Pauline Cummins) an exhibition of video art (both screened and installation) from Ireland and Canada, called Locus Suspectus. She has been nominated twice for a Governor-General’s award in media arts, and received the Epcor Established Arts award from Calgary’s Mayor for her dedication to the Calgary arts community.
Follow the artist at her website, Facebook and Vimeo.
Séan Fitzgerald
Winter Solstice II (2020)
pen/digital
This artwork represents Samhain, the traditional beginning of the Irish year, when the Cailleach, goddess of winter presided over activities. Underneath her is the Sí a Bhrú at Brú na Bóinne, where, on the morning of the winter solstice, its passageway is illuminated by the first rays of light. This is to protect the earth's fertility, which is a ritual between the sun and the earth. She is the witch healer who protects the primordial balance between light and dark, in a time of year when it was the earth's roots providing our sustenance.
Artist Bio:
Cork illustrator and writer, Seán Fitzgerald's previous works include "The Last Battle of Moytura" and "Lugh na Bua," two extensively illustrated books on Irish myths and folklore which were well-received internationally. In close collaboration with secondary school pupils in County Donegal, he has also documented the folklore and mythology of the area in two illustrated books, "Fádo" and "Féirín Feasa." Seán is currently wrapping up a heavily illustrated study of ancient Irish rituals that draws from folk traditions and Old and Middle Irish texts to reveal the origins and significance of ritual practices within the seasonal cycle of the year.
Follow the artist on his Instagram.
The Hardliners
Commissioned works in response to the festival
Live reading 1 - 2pm on November 1st.
We warmly welcome our long term collaborators, The Hardliners writing collective, for a special invited reading. Tea, brack and treats will be provided.
The Hardliners are a writing collective of Vision Impaired People or more colloquially known as VIP'S. All of whom have a dark but very expressive imagination. The collective was established in 2017 in Dublin and meet for weekly classes. The writers have been commissioned to write work in response to our final theme, Death, my Bride, with relatable and moving results.
The group members are: Anne O' Brien, Denis Fahey, Eugene Hancock, Martin Kelly and Michael Hayes.
This reading is dedicated to member John O'Brien, writer and friend who passed away in August. John's work will be presented in a special tribute.