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. In this episode, I’m chatting to Cormac Ó hAodáin, principal horn with the RTE Concert Orchestra.
He shares the bitter experience of his Mum being ill, becoming a carer overnight, and the burnout that followed. His sweet memory is of regular meetups on Zoom with a community of musicians and composers, facilitated by the Contemporary Music Centre in Dublin. His bittersweet is while isolation was challenging, he felt equipped to handle it after a decade of living alone.
Between 1993-1996, Cormac represented Ireland in the European Union Youth Orchestra, working with such eminent maestros as Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Mstislav Rostropovich and Vladimir Ashkenazy. In 1997 he joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and in 1999 became a member of the Philharmonia Orchestra. Cormac moved back to Ireland in 2009 to join the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as principal horn. Since his return to Ireland, he has established the Cassiopeia Wind Quintet and joined the teaching staff of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He is currently doing a Masters in Conducting at TU Dublin, under the mentorship of David Brophy.
CREDITS
Thumbnail Art || Colm MacAthlaoith
Songwriters || Mick Jagger, Richard Ashcroft, Keith Richards
Violin || Cliodhna Ryan
Production || Cliodhna Ryan
Mastering || Patrick Stefan Groenland
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