School of Creative Arts

Congratulations to Assoc. Prof. Ruth Barton (Film Studies) & Assoc. Prof. Simon Trezise (Music), Trinity's two most senior academics in their fields, on the publication of Music and Sound in Silent Film, From the Nickelodeon to The Artist (Routledge 2019). This brand new collection of essays, all individually commissioned, explores the multitude of functions filled by music in the rapidly changing context of the silent film era, as the concept of cinema itself developed. Examples are drawn from around the globe and across the history of silent film, both during the classic era of silent film and later uses of the silent format. With contributors drawn from film studies and music disciplines, including Assist. Prof. Nicholas Brown, Ussher Assistant Professor in the Department of Music, Music and Sound in Silent Film offers an essential introduction to the origins of film music and the cinematic art form. It is also a confirmation of the School of Creative Arts' commitment to excellence in interdisciplinary research.

The School of Creative Arts is is proud to present a discussion between acclaimed director Lenny Abrahamson (The Little Stranger, Room, Frank, What Richard Did, Garage, Adam & Paul, etc.) and the Head of Film Studies, Associate Prof. Ruth Barton covering the topic why film-makers make movies.

Three short stories written by Nigerian author Melatu Uche Okorie provide the inspiration for This Hostel Life, an installation opera composed by Assist. Prof. Rigaki that will be performed in Dublin's Christchurch Cathedral on 27th and 29th June 2019. Rigaki's imaginative use of the unique space of the crypt in Christchurch Cathedral will create an installation of immersive live opera in which members of the audience are free to travel between the various stories.

The School of Creative Arts is proud to present a discussion between acclaimed director Lenny Abrahamson (The Little Stranger, Room, Frank, What Richard Did, Garage, Adam & Paul, etc.) and the Head of Film Studies, Associate Prof. Ruth Barton covering the topic why film-makers make movies. Admission is limited to Eventbrite sign-ups only - https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/why-make-movies-in-conversation-with-lenny-abrahamson-tickets-52489261795

The fifth annual Dublin Feminist Film Festival will take place over three evenings this November, at the Light House Cinema and The Generator, Smithfield. Co-organised by Assist. Prof. Jennifer O'Meara, this year's festival focus on Women & Cinematography will include a public talk on the topic by Assist. Prof. Paula Quigley, as well as a range of features and shorts. Each film, including the Irish première of Kamila Andini's The Seen and Unseen (pictured), will feature women in the roles of principal photographer and director.

Staff and current students from the School of Creative Arts will be available to answer questions you might have if you are thinking of studying at Trinity. Several events will happen throughout the day from 09:00-15:30hrs at various locations on campus. The Music stand will be in the Old Dining Hall in Front Square or, if you're more interested in Drama or Film Studies, pop by the Samuel Beckett Theatre. Full details including timing of presentations are available in the downloadable event guide on https://www.tcd.ie/openday/.

The Ambassador of Romania, Manuela Breazu, will be joined by special guests to remember the contributions of Romanians to the First World War. Hosted in Trinity Long Room Hub from 12.45-2pm on November 7th, acclaimed musicians Adrian Mantu (cello) and Dermot Dunne (accordion) will perform Romanian music for the event which is supported by the Music Composition Centre.

This one-day symposium on Tuesday 30 October in Trinity Long Room Hub, jointly organised by Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University and the Irish Film Institute, will take a critical look at the under-researched genre of the Irish horror film. The event will include academic papers and an industry panel with attendees invited to a screening of The Devil's Doorway at the IFI.

Join M.Phil. in Music Composition and M.Phil. in Music and Media Technologies students as they showcase their compositions and installations in House 5 on Saturday 27th October from 6-7pm. Then follow us to the Trinity Chapel for the IAWM annual concert of contemporary works performed by Michelle O'Rourke and the Kirkos Ensemble.

On October 27, Assist. Prof. Jennifer O’Meara will give a talk on 'Women in Film, 1968-2018' at the Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast. The talk is part of a month-long programme of special events to celebrate the Queen's Film Theatre's 50th anniversary. Drawing on a range of local and global filmmakers, Dr O'Meara's talk will provide an overview of key developments in women's cinema and feminist film studies over the past 50 years.

Ecologies of Cultural Production, a project devised by Assoc. Prof. Ruth Barton has been awarded funds by Creative Ireland through their National Creativity Funds initiative. This project will survey a representative sample of high-profile workers in two fields, Film/Screen production and Theatre/Performance, to establish what part the subsidised cultural sector played in their career development. The aim is to inform public policy on arts funding and establish a methodology that could be applied to all sectors of cultural production.

'A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine.'
Opening with this tantalising directive, Samuel Beckett's Company reads almost as a laboratory experiment into the notion of being itself. Raymond Keane performs this intensely moving and lyrical piece of Beckettian prose, which interrogates the veracity of memory and finds company in the haunting sculpture of, 'one on his back, in the dark'. Presented by Company SJ under the stewardship of Assistant Professor Sarah Jane Scaife, these performances will resonate with all audiences in the Dublin Theatre Festival.

The Irish National Opera Studio makes an annual selection of operatic talent in Ireland - singers, répétiteurs, conductors, directors, composers - and provides specially tailored training, professional mentoring and high-level professional engagements for a group of individuals whose success will be key to the future development of opera in Ireland. As part of the INO Studio initiative, Assist. Prof. Evangelia Rigaki, Department of Music, will be developing an installation/opera to be presented in Dublin in 2019. Assist. Prof. Rigaki is pictured at the launch of the studio with Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Joseph Madigan.

Calling all postgraduate students! Once you have joined the School of Creative Arts by registering officially, come and meet your fellow postgraduate students and researchers. All postgraduate students are welcome to our annual Postgraduate Welcome Reception scheduled for 7th September 2018 at 6pm in the Arts Technology Laboratory (ATRL).

The Trinity Centre for Beckett Studies, in partnership with the Trinity Long Room Hub, the School of English, and the School of Creative Arts, will present the 2018 Samuel Beckett Summer School next week (29 July - 3 August). In addition to an intensive series of lectures and seminars designed for full participants, the programme will include four public events designed for the wider community to engage with contemporary theories and practice around Beckett's work. Details of the events can be accessed at http://www.beckettsummerschool.com

Dr Nicholas Brown presented his new sound & water installation, The Undulatory Theory of Light at Turner Contemporary, Margate on June 2 as part of the 2018 Oscillate Festival of Experimental Music and Sound. The installation investigated the quality of light that drew the English artist, J.M.W. Turner, to the seaside town of Margate. It was therefore designed to take advantage of the light from Turner Contemporary's large windows, which look out over the North Sea. The Undulatory Theory of Light is about the relationship between art and science. The title of the installation comes from an 1831 paper by Turner's friend, the scientist Michael Faraday. During the festival, Dr Brown also gave a multichannel audio performance in which sound was generated according to changes in natural light in the gallery.

Now in its eighth year, the Samuel Beckett Summer School provides a unique experience for students, scholars and lovers of Beckett's works. Each year we invite the world's foremost Beckett scholars to present new lectures and seminars on all aspects of Beckett's works. The School appeals to a wide range of Beckett enthusiasts by providing the opportunity to experience, savour and study Beckett's works in the university where he began his intellectual life. Email info@beckettsummerschool.com for the 2018 application form.

The School of Creative Arts is delighted that the TCD Association & Trust have enabled an upgrade to equipment in the costume room in the Samuel Beckett Theatre. The TCD Association & Trust provides grant support for a wide variety of College projects where funding is not available from mainstream resources. The School is grateful for this support and the support of all of its alumni over the years.

Join the Mornington Singers, conducted by Dr Orla Flanagan, Assistant Professor in Music, as they celebrate 21 years of choral performances at 7pm on Saturday 23rd June in Trinity College Chapel.

Lost Ships List is a new composition (music by Dr Evangelia Rigaki; text by Prof. W. N. Herbert, Professor of Poetry & Creative Writing, Newcastle University) based on the records of the Dundee whaling industry, which, between 1756 and 1920, sent one of the largest whaling fleets annually to the Arctic. Over forty ships were lost in this hazardous and ecologically disastrous hunting down of whales and seals, and many men died, whether far from home or within sight of harbour. Now a litany of their ship's names and the causes of their loss sounds like a lament for whalers, whales, and their endangered environment itself. This piece will be performed in Vienna by Ria Georgiadis (flute) & Sven Birch (piano) on Tuesday 19th June 2018.

We are very excited to announce the Composition Graduate Show 2018, consisting of M.Phil. and Ph.D. composers showcasing their new creative works. Our very talented graduate composers coming from Ireland, the USA, Canada, Malaysia and Hong Kong will present their recent compositions. We are honoured to have Richard O'Donnell, Sylvia O'Brien, Elizabeth Hilliard, Bill Dowdall and Paul Roe to perform the new compositions. Admission is free. All welcome to join us on Thursday 31st May, 7pm at the Samuel Beckett Theatre. Special thanks to the Visual & Performing Arts Fund.

Nell'insonnia di avere in sorte la luce (Like the Grave of a Stone, Like the Cradle of a Star), an experimental short documentary directed by current Drama and Film students, Lucamatteo Rossi and Giorgiomaria Cornelio, will be shown as part of La settimana del cinema italiano on Friday 25th May at 5pm in Room 5086, Arts Building. Nell'insonnia di avere in sorte la luce (Like the Grave of a Stone, Like the Cradle of a Star) is an alchemical journey between Italy and Ireland, an interdisciplinary atlas of different languages and places that displays the possibilities of contemporary cinema as a place of exploration. All welcome to attend.

Playthings, a piece created for flute by Dr Evangelia Rigaki, Assistant Professor in Music, will be performed in the Museum of Asian Art by renowned flautist William Dowdall (Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin) on Tuesday 22nd May as part of his visit to Ionian University in Greece. The piece is inspired by a chapter of the same title in Prof. Michael Cronin's (French Department, Trinity) book Time Tracks, scenes from the Irish everyday.

Nodlag Houlihan, a lecturer in Film Studies and a seasoned producer/director of excellent short films, has produced My Trans Life directed by Matt Leigh. This two-part series was co-produced by Zucca Films and That's a Wrap TV. It airs on national television station RTÉ2 at 9.30pm on 17th & 24th of May.

It's that time of year again when we are ready to release a new batch of playwrights out into the world at the annual Advanced Playwriting Showcase at the Samuel Beckett Theatre on Tuesday 15th May at 3pm!
Our writers have been working non-stop all year and have now completed their full-length plays. Come and meet Anne Boleyn as she faces her mortality, the new lovers Morgan and Nikolai, a Christmas family squabble in the 1980s. Partake in group-therapy, witness marriages crumble, a fever take hold of Dublin, a hapless young protagonist who keeps getting fired, heart-wrenching abuse, and the weirdest of turns at a family wake.
The 2018 Playwrights are: Meret Linnarz, Hannah Dooley, Rachel Blennerhassett, Morag Dine, Cathal Thornton, Jessie Connell, Becky Gygax, Robert Farrelly, Jack Brophy & Cliodhna Kelly.

The School of Creative Arts warmly congratulates 2 students who have excelled in composition competitions.
Darragh Kelly, Senior Sophister, Composition Major, was one of the winners of the West Cork Music Composition Competition for Young Composers 2018. Darragh's composition will be performed during the West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2018 in the Town Concert Series 2-7 July 2018.
Jack Oades, M.Phil. in Music Composition, won the Buckfast Abbey Millennium Young Composers' Competition by penning a winning composition interpretation of the first line of Psalm 41 Sic cervus, the motto of Buckfast Abbey. His composition was performed as part of the Festival of Sacred Music on 19th April 2018.

Trinity is proud to host Professor Anna Furse, a visiting artist working between three different areas of college - Medical and Health Humanities, Creative Arts Practice, and the ISSF Wellcome Trust Neurohumanities Public Talks series - for the first week in May. Prof. Furse will deliver a lecture entitled The body spectacular — hysteria, sub fertility, anatomy and the prosthetic gaze in Trinity Long Room Hub on Thursday 1st May at 2pm. Prof. Furze will also give an animated lecture with saw playing and illuminating video called An Anatomy Act: A Show and Tell by Anna Furse / Athletes of the Heart in the Players Theatre on Wednesday 2nd May at 7pm. All welcome!

Led by Richard O'Donnell and comprising some of Ireland's finest young percussionists, the RIAM Percussion Ensemble is one of the leading exponents of music for this exhilarating medium. During MusicTown 2018, this dynamic ensemble celebrates its 20th Anniversary in style on Tuesday 17th and Wednesday 18th April at 7p.m. in ATRL with a highly charged programme featuring music never before performed in Ireland. The Irish première of a work by Evangelia Rigaki commissioned by the RIAM Percussion Ensemble to mark its landmark anniversary year will be performed alongside a composition by Harrison Birtwistle, one of the best-known names in British contemporary music and a celebrated composer throughout the world. This work was premièred in New York University in March 2018, had a subsequent performance in Lehman College in New York before being performed in Dublin.

Nicholas Brown's recent work for clavichord, electronics and mobile phones, Vanishing Points (2017), will feature at this year's Sonorities Festival in Belfast at 1p.m. on Saturday 21st April. Nicholas will give three live performances on the clavichord, further to giving the world premiere performance in September 2017 at the Orpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgium. Tickets are free, but advanced sign-up is required via the Sonorities booking system.

We are delighted to announce that 3 Trinity students have been shortlisted for Film Script of the Year at the Oxygen Student Media Awards. The shortlisted scripts, one from each screenwriting module in Michaelmas Term, are Áine Thistleton from SF, Sarah Ratcliffe from SS, and Ivan Cush from M.Phil. in Film Studies - Theory, History, Practice. One other shortlisted script was written by Aoife Bradshaw who graduated from Film Studies at Trinity and is now doing her Masters at IADT. Áine and Aoife have been nominated as finalists in the Film Script of the Year category.
Congratulations to these highly talented students on achieving recognition nationally and best of luck to Áine and Aoife at the national awards ceremony at the Aviva Stadium on 19th April 2018.

How much energy does it take to put on a piece of theatre? Come behind the scenes to discover the highs, lows, blood, sweat, tears, clichés and passions of a technical rehearsal in Anne Washburn's play 10 out of 12. A partnership between award-winning Sugarglass Theatre, second-year drama students, and the Samuel Beckett Theatre. Performances daily at 19:30hrs (matinee 14:30hrs on 14th) 10-14 April, Samuel Beckett Theatre.

Edited by Sinéad Gleeson, The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers (New Island, 2015) gathers short stories by 30 Irish women writers, from Maria Edgeworth to E. M. Reapy. It is the Dublin: One City One Book choice for 2018. Inspired by the anthology, this event explores the many timely questions it raises about literature and representation in Ireland, and celebrates the achievement of four of the writers whose stories are collected here. The event happens on Thursday 5th April 2018 at 19:00hrs in Regent House.

Gavin Fitzgerald, a graduate of Film Studies at Trinity, returned to the Maxwell Theatre, Hamilton Building on 7th March to talk about his acclaimed documentary: Notorious (2017) with current Trinity students and staff. Filmed over four years, the documentary follows Conor McGregor from his local Dublin gym, when some members cannot even afford mouth guards, to his 9-figure payday fighting Floyd Mayweather.
Gavin graduated from Trinity in 2010. After working in the film industry and perfecting his craft, the emerging filmmaker made a documentary for RTÉ about mixed martial arts that led to Conor inviting Gavin to fully document his rise to stardom. After screening the film, Gavin participated in a Q&A with Trinity students and staff about his road to Notorious, his plans for the future, and how his degree in Film Studies from Trinity helped prepare him for work in the industry.

We are delighted to announce the return of Trinity's annual US Open Day Roadshow taking place in March 2018. We are proud to return to locations we visited in previous years - Boston, New York and Chicago. We are also excited to bring our first Open Day to the West Coast as we visit San Francisco. Additionally we will be holding two information evenings in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Register today to secure your place at our US Open Day Roadshow if you are considering attending Trinity.

Join us on Saturday, 17th February, at 8pm to hear two of Dublin's award-winning choirs come together to present an evening of a cappella choral music in the atmospheric surroundings of Trinity College Chapel. Featuring works by Buckley - Debussy - Doherty - Dubra - Ešenvalds - Vaughan Williams sung by the Mornington Singers and the Laetare Vocal Ensemble.

Join us for a screening and informative Q&A with acclaimed writer/director Maeve Murphy on Friday 26th January 2018 from 12-2pm in the Samuel Beckett Theatre.

Silent Grace (2001) is Maeve Murphy's critically acclaimed feature debut about the untold story of the women prisoners in Armagh Prison during the 1980 'dirty' protests and hunger strike. Starring Orla Brady, the film remains little seen and is unavailable on any commercial platform. This is, therefore, a unique opportunity to view it and to hear Maeve discuss her approach to making it. We are also hoping that Orla Brady and other cast members will be in attendance.

The School of Creative Arts will be meeting prospective students in the Dining Hall and the Samuel Beckett Theatre as part of Trinity's Open Day on Saturday 9th December.

Hearty congratulations to our current Irish and Music student Luke Rock who achieved a 2017 Trinity Sports Scholarship in basketball!

Join us on Saturday, 18th November, at 8pm to hear the Mornington Singers conducted by Orla Flanagan singing Echoes of Eternity, a concert featuring Requiem by Howells and Mass for Double Choir by Martin in Trinity College Chapel!

A public presentation of Virtual Play, the inaugural V-SENSE Creative Technologies project at the School of Creative Arts Art Technology Research Laboratory!

Join the School of Creative Arts in celebrating all things Beckett from 30 July - 4 August 2017.

Our immensely talented graduate, Ruth Negga, joins The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with fellow Irish actors Ciarán Hinds & Domhnall Gleeson.

Join us for Brecht in the Beckett! The English-language premiere of Brecht’s David scenes translated & directed by our colleague Dr. Nicholas Johnson adapted for the stage by David Shepherd and the David ensemble. Opening Wednesday, 28th June for one week only at the Samuel Beckett Theatre!