Toronto composer Stephanie Martin has been announced as the Trinity Long Room Hub’s inaugural O’Mahony Music Fellow. Launched in May 2025, the O’Mahony Music Fellowship is generously supported by Rosemary O’Mahony and is dedicated to music and music-related research. The three-month fellowship is awarded annually on a competitive basis.
An accomplished composer of works for both voices and instruments, Martin’s awards include the York University AMPD research award (2019), the Exultate Chamber Singers’ competition (2009), and the Association of Anglican Musicians competition (2010).
Martin will collaborate with Trinity College Dublin’s Department of Music to develop a new choral score drawing on the poetry and experiences of the Irish Canadian diaspora and their migration to Canada during Ireland’s Great Famine (An Gorta Mór). The composer is interested in seeing how performers and audiences can acquire a deeper understanding of the Irish diaspora in Canada through experiential learning.
At the peak of Ireland’s Great Famine in 1847, over 38,000 Irish men, women and children landed at Dr. Reese’s Wharf in Toronto, then a city of just 20,000 inhabitants. Mirroring the series of ‘Departure’ and ‘Arrival’ Famine sculptures on waterfronts in Dublin and Toronto designed by Rowan Gillespie, Martin’s creative musical project aims to link both cities through choral composition, combining the performative art of group singing, and the poetry of the Irish Canadian diaspora.
During her fellowship, Martin will work with Trinity Professor and conductor Orla Flanagan (Department of Music) and the acclaimed Mornington Singers. Through on-site workshops, the choir will help hone the score, which will return to Toronto for further collaboration with Canadian choirs. Professor Flanagan has previously performed Martin’s cycle of choral songs based on the poetry of Robert Frost.
A Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar of music at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design, Martin is currently composer-in-residence for the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. She directs Schola Magdalena, a women’s ensemble, is conductor emeritus of Pax Christi Chorale, and past director of music at the historic church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto.
Her works include an oratorio, The Sun, the Wind, and the Man with the Cloak (2019), an opera Llandovery Castle (2018), about nurses who lost their lives in WW1 aboard their Canadian hospital ship, a Requiem mass Requiem for All Souls (2017) premiered in San Diego (Ruben Valenzuela, conductor) and Missa Chicagoensis (2017) premiered at St. John Cantius parish in Chicago (Fr Scott Haynes, conductor).
Martin’s first commission for Toronto Mendlessohn Choir ‘Echo’ premieres on Nov 5 and 7th in Toronto. WATER: an environmental oratorio premièred in Kitchener-Waterloo’s Centre in the Square in 2023 (Mark Vuorinen, conductor).
Her choral music is published by Cypress Music in Vancouver, and Renforth Music in New Brunswick, and Selah Publishing in Pittsburg. The Canadian Music Centre in Toronto holds several scores, including instrumental chamber music and solo song.
During her fellowship, Martin will be embedded within the Trinity Long Room Hub’s interdisciplinary environment and engage with faculty across diverse research areas including Music and English, while also sharing her knowledge of the flourishing Canadian choral tradition.
Speaking of her fellowship, Martin said:
“The residency offers a unique opportunity to examine our distinct yet intertwined Canadian and Irish choral traditions, compositional histories, performance practice and pedagogy, culminating in new compositions for choirs, entwining cultural threads that bind Dublin and Toronto.
An important aspect of my creative practice is to view music as a vehicle for social commentary, raising awareness of important current and historical issues, and as a means of bringing people together and creating community. The success of this international collaboration may inspire others to pursue cooperative musical projects across borders.”
Professor Orla Flanagan commented:
“I am delighted to have this opportunity to engage closely with Stephanie Martin through Trinity Long Room Hub's O'Mahony Music Fellowship.
Stephanie's choral music has a wonderful directness of expression through her treatment of text, and it is written with consideration and insight into what is natural and idiomatic for choral singers; therefore, I expect it to be a thoroughly fruitful and enjoyable collaboration for the Mornington Singers and for Trinity's Music Department. I look forward to playing my part in the creation of new artworks that will strengthen cultural links between Ireland and Canada.”
Rosemary O’Mahony said:
“I am looking forward to hearing the new musical score, which the distinguished Stephanie Martin will create to enable audiences to gain insights into the musical experiences of the Irish diaspora in Canada”.
The Trinity Long Room Hub is now inviting applications for the second fellowship to be undertaken in the 2027-28 academic year. Please see here for call details.