Thanks to the support of Arts Council, Failte Ireland, Crespo Foundation and the Friends of West Cork Music, we were able to present the Virtual Chamber Music Festival this summer which was welcomed by our loyal audience. Next summer’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival will take place from 25^th June to 4^th July albeit in a slightly different format. We are expecting to have to restrict the size of our audiences but the good news is that the number of concerts will quadruple. All will be revealed when the programme is announced later this year.

Following its cancellation this summer, West Cork Literary Festival (WCLF) has developed its online presence and presented a programme of virtual readings and workshops which have been very well supported. The 2021 Festival runs from 9 – 16 July and will be a mixture of in-person and online events.

The good news is that WCLF events are being held throughout the year. The autumn/winter programme includes events featuring Maeve Higgins, Leslie Jamison, Louise O’Neill, Tadhg Coakley, Sara Baume, Doireann Ní Ghrioffa and Children’s Books Ireland as well as workshops tutored by poet Jane Clarke and crime writer Catherine Ryan Howard.

Watch out for an extra treat coming in December!

Planning for next summer’s Masters of Tradition festival and West Cork Music’s Concert Series is also underway.

Ensemble Dagda will be filming a concert at the end of November which will then be made available on our Vimeo channel.

And, fingers crossed, we might have an extra online Masters of Tradition concert for you this winter – watch this space.

We were able to bring live music back into County Cork schools recently when Ensemble Dagda delivered interactive workshops in six schools via Zoom. Through Cork County Council’s generous support, it was possible to offer these particular online workshops free of charge as part of the County Council’s Being Creative in COVID 19  programme. A workshop video was also produced which will be made available to all schools in County Cork. This was a Tuning Up project – Tuning Up is part of Cork County Council’s annual Arts in Schools Programme. Future Tuning Up projects are being planned and details will be sent to all schools in the county.

Young people also continue to be a focus for West Cork Music, through READ ON, the 4-year project across 6 European countries and 5 languages. Funded by the EU Creative Europe programme, it aims to reignite a passion for reading amongst young people between the ages of 12 -19.

The latest READ ON event organised by West Cork Music was Murder Manor, devised, written and performed by members of Graffiti Theatre Company’s Activate Youth Theatre, with support and mentoring from Dave Lordan. The participants were mentored to create a concept for their piece, device and write a script, record the scenes, edit the recordings, contribute to the sound design and distribute the final product.