Hello and welcome to Bittersweet Symphony, a podcast where classical musicians share the bitter, the sweet and the bittersweet of life when the concert halls shut their doors and the music stopped.
I’m Cliodhna Ryan, violinist, member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and freelancer, and in this episode, I’m chatting to Caitríona Frost.
Caitríona is a freelance percussionist whose career started at the age of 4 playing an egg shaker with the local concert band. She performs regularly with Ireland’s leading orchestras and has toured extensively with Celtic Woman and Declan O’Rourke. She is a founding member of Bangers & Crash percussion ensemble, which is led by Alex Petcu.
Recently Caitríona has been composing works for percussion that are steeped in the Irish tradition, drawing on her early experiences of playing fiddle and tin whistle.
In 2020, she was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland Music Bursary, as well as a residency at Roadbooks, Co.Cork. She has just returned from a residency at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, funded by Music Network.
Caitríona’s bitter memory is of her work suddenly stopping, and her relationship ending. Her sweet memory is of a wonderful Christmas Day spent with family in West Cork. There were gifts exchanged, sea swims, and lots of love and laughter. Much of her experience at this time felt bittersweet, as her extraordinary artistic and personal journey came about through the pain of her relationship break up, devastating loss of work, and the sudden impact the pandemic had on her entire way of living.
This conversation was recorded in September 2021.
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CREDITS
Thumbnail Art || Colm MacAthlaoith
Writers || Mick Jagger, Richard Ashcroft, Keith Richards
Violin || Cliodhna Ryan
Production || Cliodhna Ryan
Mastering- Patrick Stefan Groenland
