Inclusive Music Ensemble

Hugh McCarthy, senior lecturer at MTU Cork School of Music in music technology writes below about the Inclusive Music Ensemble.

The Inclusive Music Ensemble (IME) performance group and college courses commenced in late 2021. We aspire to be an experimental music performance group in the same vein as Ireland’s renowned Crash Ensemble. IME consists of several programmes of learning being co‑delivered in a single inclusive classroom setting in MTU Cork School of Music (CSM). IME strives to be an inclusive initiative for artistic and creative expression, participation, and education.

We welcome a diverse mix of participants of various levels of ability in the ensemble, and it facilitates social and cultural interaction between everyone involved through the medium of music and performance. Many of the learners have disabilities, intellectual and physical, ranging from
moderate to profound, that would usually exclude them from partaking in higher education institution activities.

IME is a collaborative partnership between MTU CSM and Cork Education and Training Board to enable the sustainable offering of academic credit in a higher education institution (HEI) to those who would not usually have access to a university.

IME released its first recordings in October 2023. You can listen to them on all the major music streaming platforms. They released a short film in collaboration with the Irish National Opera and Everyman Theatre in May 2024. IME has performed regularly around Cork at events and conferences, and recently members performed to diverse international audiences at a festival in Cyprus.

Learn more at csm.mtu.ie/ime.

Please contact Hugh.McCarthy@mtu.ie for more details.