Of Art and Mind performed by Maynooth University Orchestra by Marc Balbirnie

This piece was co-composed by myself, Gareth McCarthy and Donal Rafferty to commemorate the retirement of Professor Gerard Gillen from the music department of NUI Maynooth in 2007. Trini Armstrong, founder of the Maynooth University Orchestra, helped to shape the piece into something that could be performed by the ensemble. She then conducted the piece during a lunchtime concert in the Aula Maxima, NUI Maynooth.

At the time we were all just in shock that we actually managed to write a piece for the orchestra and that we had it performed, but in retrospect the piece leaves a lot to be desired. There are some nice ideas in there, but understandably enough given the circumstance there is a fair bit of discontinuity to it. I don't want to be unkind to the orchestra, but there are also a fair few issues there with tuning, and also timing at points. All in all it was still an amazing feat as this was first ever student composition performed by Maynooth University Orchestra. This led the way to a short tradition of student composition competitions with the orchestra over the following years.