Katie Bamford
Katie Bamford is an Irish composer from Co. Down. She began piano lessons when she was five and developed an obsession with the instrument in her teenage years, during which she attained a DipLCM in piano performance and became a finalist for the Catherine Judge Memorial Award. As an undergraduate, her interests turned to composition. She graduated from Durham University in 2016 with a first class BA (Hons) in Music, having specialised in composition and performance and later attained an MPhil in Music Composition from Trinity College Dublin in 2017.
Katie’s compositional style is varied and versatile. Writing both acoustic and electronic music, she has keen academic compositional interests in spectralism, microtonality, and exploring texture-based structures using sonic-conceptual metaphors which allude to visual and tactile sensations. Her choral music is set apart from this; preferring to use more traditional modes of composition, her choral writing places its focus on contemporary harmony rather than timbre-texture.
In recent years she has been a winner of the 3rd ORTUS International New Music Competition and a Guest Composer at the University of Southampton. Her award-winning choral piece, Ecstasy, has received performances in New York and Los Angeles as well as in Ireland and the UK.
Ben Hanlon
Ben Hanlon’s compositional career began when he started writing music for the student choirs at De La Salle College in Waterford, the secondary school where he has taught for the past forty years. Through his work in De La Salle he has inspired a love of music in thousands of students, many of whom who have gone on to become performers, composers and choir directors.
Hanlon’s early compositions were mostly arrangements of Irish songs, written for his school choir to fulfil the Irish language requirement at Cork International Choral Festival. Now his works are staples of the competition repertoire at festivals across the country.
He has completed a PhD and MA in composition at Waterford Institute of Technology under the direction of Dr Eric Sweeney and Dr Marian Ingoldsby. Previous music studies were at University College Dublin. While focused on choral writing, he has also composed for orchestra, chamber ensembles and solo voice.
He has been commissioned by groups such as New Dublin Voices, Cois Cladaigh, Lake Forest College, Illinois, Florida State University Men’s Glee, and Mornington Singers. Hanlon’s choral compositions are frequently performed in Ireland, and he has also had works performed in Great Britain, the United States, China and across Europe, including performances by Canticum Ostrava and The Beijing Youth Orchestra. Ben’s Molaimís go léir an tAon Mhac Chríost was chosen to be performed by the BBC Singers in October 2016 at a concert celebrating European contemporary composers. Works have been recorded by New Dublin Voices and Voci Nuove.
Damien Kehoe
Damien Kehoe was born in Waterford and began composing choral music at the age of eighteen. His interest in choral music stems from his time in the De La Salle senior choir, directed by Ben Hanlon. Fascinated by the production of different harmonies and sounds, he began experimenting with vocal arrangements for the male voice. He completed a BA in WIT, majoring in composition under Marian Ingoldsby.
His work has been showcased at Waterford New Music Week, and has performed by choirs all over the world, including China, the Philippines, USA and Europe. In 2018 Damien was invited to Italy where he gave a masterclass on his compositions.