Westmeath composer is tipped as "one to watch in 2022" by Washington Post
A Westmeath composer based in the US has been tipped as “one to watch in 2022” by one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world.
The Washington Post has listed Emma O’Halloran among a top-class group of 22 classical composers and performers to watch out for in 2022.
In a recent “22 for ‘22” article in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, they described the gifted Athlone-born musician, vocalist and composer as being an artist who makes “intensely beautiful (or beautifully intense?) works that scatter the boundary between acoustic and electronic music.”
Lamenting the fact that the premiere of her new opera “Trade” has been indefinitely postponed due to the cancellation of the tenth anniversary Prototype Festival in New York as a result of a surge in Covid cases after Christmas, the Washington Post said that it is in another of the young Athlone woman’s operatic works that “the true breaths of her talents” comes to the fore.
That opera is called “The Wait” and the paper also references the fact that the RTE Symphony Orchestra is due to premiere another of O’Halloran’s works this March called “To Come Back to Earth.”
The daughter of retired Brigadier General Peter O’Halloran and his wife, Linda, from Clonbrock Court, Retreat Park in Athlone, Emma has had a hugely successful career in music and is a graduate of Athlone Community College, NUI Maynooth and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
She has been living in the United States for almost ten years where she obtained a Ph.D, in Music Composition from Princeton University , and she has been steadily making a name for herself in the highly competitive world of music composition and performance.
The naming of Emma O’Halloran by the Washington Post as one of 22 classical composers and performers to watch out for in 2022 is sure to bring her musical talents to a whole new audience and guarantee her place as one of the most exciting new Irish talents to emerge on the international classical music scene.