Our Musicians
Siobhán Cleary // Artistic Director
Born in Dublin, Siobhán Cleary’s work has been performed worldwide. She has been commissioned by National Symphony Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Choir Ireland and the Vanbrugh Quartet among many others . Her critically acclaimed opera “Vampirella” based on a story by Angela Carter premiered in Smock Alley in 2017 and ran for four nights to a sold out house. Her work has been featured at New Music Dublin, Horizons, Imagine Ireland, Culture Ireland’s year - long celebration of Irish arts in the United States in 2011 and Imagining Ireland 2020 at the NCH and the Barbican. In July 2013 She was recipient of the first Annual Irish Residency at the soundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy which premiered her chamber work “Ondine” performed by Tony Arnold.
In 1995 she was a finalist in the Young Composers’ Award at the Huddersfield Festival. Other awards include a Pépinières Young European Artists award in 1996 and first prize in the Arklow Music Festival Composers’ Competition in 1997. In 1997 a concert of her music was performed at Cité International des Arts in Paris. Her orchestral work, Threads (1992 rev.1994), was selected for the Second International Festival of New Music for Orchestra in Olomouc and was later released on CD. Siobhán has also written the music for films and documentaries including the score for two Roger Corman feature films. In 1996, she worked with the Ciniteca di Bologna writing music scores to restored films, most notably the Dali/Buñuel classic ‘Un Chien Andalou’ .
Recent commissions , scheduled for 2022 performances, include Liadain for Great Music in Irish Houses, Storm in Devon for Vox Clamantis at Louth Contemporary Music Festival, SleepSong for Elizabeth Hilliard and Abhartach for Harp, Electronics and Film with Úna Monaghan for the Dock, Carrick- On -Shannon. The Dust Veil was commissioned by the Crash Ensemble as part of their Reactions films 2022.A new work for pianist Isabelle O’Connell and electronics WhirlyGig will premiere at New Music Dublin 2022
Siobhán was elected to Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists in 2008.
Isabelle O’Connell // Piano
Since her Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2002, pianist Isabelle O’Connell has developed an international career as soloist and chamber musician that has taken her around the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, to venues such as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Art Institute, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, St David’s Hall, Cardiff and the National Concert Hall, Ireland. Isabelle is co- founder of Grand Band, a piano sextet described by the New York Times as: “six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene”.
She has also performed with Crash Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Da Capo Chamber Players, the ConTempo and New Zealand String Quartets.
Composers she has worked with include John Adams, John Luther Adams, Missy Mazzoli, Meredith Monk, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, Kevin Volans, Linda Buckley, Donnacha Dennehy, Dan Trueman, Bunita Marcus, amongst many others. Isabelle has recorded for the Diatribe, Innova, NMC and Lyric fm labels. She was hailed by The New Yorker as “the Irish piano phenom”; upon the release of her debut solo album RESERVOIR in 2010.
A Fulbright scholar, Isabelle holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She is currently on the Visiting Piano Faculty at Bard College and Conservatory of Music in New York, and has given masterclasses and workshops around the world, including at Queen’s University Belfast, Montclair University, the New Zealand School of Music, Dublin Institute of Technology and the European Piano Teachers’ Association.
Sylvia O’Brien // Soprano
Equally at home in the classical and contemporary repertoire, Sylvia O’Brien has impressed audiences in her performances of opera, oratorio and chamber music.
Since her critically acclaimed debut as the Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw in 2004, Ms O’Brien has performed numerous leading roles such as The Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Konstanze (Die Entfuhrung), Anne Trulove (A Rake’s Progress), Fiordiligi (Cosi Fan Tutte), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Jenufa (Jenufa), and most recently the title roles in Turandot and Lucia di Lammermor.
Ms O’Brien is a regular guest soloist with orchestras, chamber ensembles, recital halls and festivals throughout Europe. Her vast repertoire includes Chausson, Berlioz, Mozart, Bach, Verdi, Shostakovich and Wagner and the lighter repertoire of Strauss, Lehar, Novello and Gilbert and Sullivan. Ms O’Brien’s oratorio repertoire highlights include Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s C Minor Mass, Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gobots, Dvorak Requiem, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle.
Her vocal and musical skills make her an important singer in her contemporary repertoire. Significant contemporary performances include Feldman’s Neither conducted by Stefan Asbury and Gerald Barry’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant conducted by Gerhard Markson. Ms O’Brien has commissioned, collaborated on, and premiered many works. Her most notable collaboration is with the Irish composer Seóirse Bodley. Ms O’Brien is a founding member of the Irish chamber ensemble Evlana.
Recently awarded Doctor of Music from Trinity College Dublin, Dr. O’Brien is an active member of Society of Musicology in Ireland, presenting lectures on contemporary Irish vocal music and vocal techniques. Dr O’Brien is also a member of the faculty of the Royal Irish Academy of Music and Dublin City University.
Keith Pascoe // Musical Director & Violin
Keith Pascoe was invited to join the Vanbrugh Quartet in 1998 whilst still a London-based musician.
His studied violin, piano, chamber music, and conducting at the Royal College of Music under Jaroslav Vanecek, Eileen Reynolds, Aeolian and Amadeus Quartets, and Norman Del Mar.
In 1985 he founded the Britten Quartet who became EMI exclusive artists having previously made numerous recordings with other labels, touring the world for ten years. After the Britten Quartet disbanded, it wasn’t long before he heard Ireland’s call…
In Cork he hit the ground running with a hectic national and international schedule. Touring for nearly twenty years with the Vanbrugh Quartet. In quieter times he was inspired to take further studies including research into the music of Luigi Boccherini. Several of his critical editions have been published, and he is Lecturer in chamber music and violin at TU Dublin.
His solo violin work includes performing cycles of the complete Mozart and Beethoven Sonatas on a tour of Ireland supported by the Arts Council. And as director-violinist of Evlana, an Irish contemporary music group, he continues to work with living Irish composers.
As conductor of the Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra for many years, he has conducted, and played concertos, on numerous occasions.
The renaissance of the Vanbrugh has brought him further inspiration and refocus. Opening new possibilities in repertoire, collaborations and artistic challenges.
William Dowdall // Flutes
Dublin born William Dowdall, one of Ireland’s leading musicians, combines a busy career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. He trained in Cleveland, Ohio, where his teachers included Maurice Sharp of the Cleveland Orchestra, and his interest in new music was sparked by Donald Erb, composer in residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music. On returning to Ireland at the age of 21 he was appointed principal flute of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. From 1979 to 2004 he was principal flute of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. He was appointed professor of flute at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 2004.
He has given over 50 solo performances with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and Irish Chamber Orchestra, and has appeared at all the major festivals in Ireland. He has been a member of the Daedalus Wind Quintet, Ulysses Ensemble, and the Ulysses Wind Quintet which was a prize-winner in the Colmar International Chamber Music Competition in 1980.
As a chamber musician he has also guested with the RTÉ Vanbrugh and Parisii string quartets. Solo performances abroad have taken him around Europe, and to the USA, China, and New Zealand, and Australia. His work has been broadcast extensively by the Irish public service broadcaster, RTÉ, and he has also broadcast on BBC radio and television, Australian Television, and Shanghai Radio. In addition to a wide ranging repertoire, his interest in contemporary music led him to develop a workshop based on contemporary solo flute music by Irish composers, which has been presented in Europe, United States, New Zealand, and Australia to considerable acclaim. He has introduced Irish audiences to new works from the international repertoire, and has actively promoted the music of Irish composers abroad. Many Irish composers have written works for him and he premiered a new work by John Buckley for flute and orchestra with the RTÉ NSO and toured with it around Ireland in 2006 and performed it again with the NSO in January 2009.
In the last 2 years alone he has given 8 world premieres of works by Irish composers and has espoused the flute music of composers such as Bernstein, Boulez, Takemitsu, Henze, Varèse, and Maxwell Davies in Ireland. He recently gave the Irish premiere of Takemitsu’s “I Can Hear the Water Dreaming” with the RTÉ NSO. As a solo artist he has made critically-acclaimed recordings for Goasco, Naxos, Marco Polo, Black Box, and Celestial Harmonies labels and is currently involved in a project with Atoll Records to record Irish and New Zealand works for solo flute and flute and electronics.