Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra 2024

In July, the 2024 edition of the Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra (IYBO) took place. This year, for the very first time, brass players and dancers joined the orchestra to perform Handel’s Water Music with performances in City Hall, Waterford and in Dublin Castle as part of the Irish Baroque Orchestra’s Dublin HandelFest. The dancers were taught by early modern dance expert Mary Collins. Below some of the 2024 players and dancers share their thoughts on IYBO.

Eva Crowley is a second year oboe student at the MTU Cork School of Music. She is an avid orchestral player, having previously performed with the Irish Youth Wind Ensemble, Irish Symphonic Wind Orchestra and the Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra. Eva has taken part in IYBO three times. Eva had previously not considered baroque music a huge amount but now has a newfound appreciation for it. Eva says that “I first got involved with IYBO through the IYBO woodwind programme when I saw that they were offering baroque oboe lessons. I barely knew what a baroque oboe was at the time, let alone ever having played one. I did online lessons with Andreas Helm and enjoyed them. In the lessons, I learned how to play the baroque oboe and also learned about how to play in the baroque style, so it was great to be able to put this to use as part of IYBO”.

She found the experience of playing a baroque oboe very worthwhile and has helped her playing of the modern oboe as well; “I find the modern and baroque oboe to be very different. The instruments themselves look very different, the most obvious thing being that there are only two keys on the baroque oboe, which means learning lots of new fingerings! The wood of the modern oboe is much thicker than that of the Baroque oboe which gives the modern oboe a richer tone. In order to get a nice sound on the baroque oboe, it’s completely up to the player, because the instrument does not help at all! As a result, I focused a lot more on the air and support I was using. These are really fundamental parts of oboe playing, and having an increased awareness and focus on these has helped to improve my tone on the modern oboe too”. Eva continues that after playing with the IYBO, “I often play solo baroque music on modern oboe for college exams, and I’ve picked up lots of knowledge during my time with IYBO that I have been able to apply to my solo playing”.

Eva also feels that the role of the oboe in the baroque orchestra is quite different to the modern oboe in a symphony orchestra; “In a symphony orchestra, the oboe part could have one 3-bar solo followed by 40 bars rest, whereas in a baroque orchestra you are playing all the time, and I actually found this very tiring! The oboe usually plays in unison with the violins so I find that I spend more time listening and watching other players, whereas in a symphony orchestra the part is much more individual so I spend most of the time watching the conductor. The baroque orchestra feels more like chamber music, which I really like”.

Cillian Ó Cathasaigh from Cork is a violin student of Katherine Hunka, currently studying at MTU Cork School of Music. Cillian also has a background in Irish trad music and led the IYBO playing Giordani’s Celebrated Overture and Irish Medley to The Island of Saints to close the concert. Speaking of the relationship between Irish trad and baroque music, Cillian explains that, “The Baroque style of music is definitely the style of classical music that is closest to Irish trad. Baroque music shares the ornamentation and spontaneity of Irish trad. With Irish trad, especially in sessions, everyone is playing slightly differently and being influenced by those around them and, from my understanding, baroque musicians must improvise ornamentation all the time as well. Both styles share certain tune types also, such as the gigue or jig in Irish trad. However, I have noticed differences, one being the way the pieces are learned, Baroque music, like most classical music would have been written down, sometimes with ornamentation included, whereas in Irish trad, generally it is all passed down by ear”.

Similar to Cillian’s experience when speaking about how IYBO compares to other courses, Eva states that IYBO is very different; “Firstly, it’s quite a small group. As a result of this, when we play together it feels more like chamber music than playing with an orchestra, and players are willing to share ideas and give opinions on how they think certain things should be played. We had Claire Duff as our leader, and mixing her expertise with that of all the other musicians was really great because we ended up playing in a way that we all had some input into, rather than it being dictated by one person. It made the music feel like it was our own, which I really liked. We did baroque dance and Feldenkreis workshops during the week, and although they aren’t rehearsals, they really help our playing and understanding of the music. This learning away from the instruments is something unique to IYBO, and it’s something I find really effective”.

Felicity Maxwell is a literary historian and arts communicator who loves to dance. Felicity has taught dance workshops at the Galway Early Music Festival and played percussion with the Galway Early Music Consort. Describing her reasons for taking part in the IYBO dance course she writes that, “I took ballet classes throughout my childhood and teens and then discovered English and Scottish country dancing when in my 20s. Ballet as we know it developed from baroque dance, and baroque also has some overlap with the country dance tradition. I wanted to explore these connections and learn a new (to me) style of historical dancing. It was wonderful to have this opportunity in Dublin rather than needing to go overseas. Ireland has an incredibly rich early music scene and I’d love to be part of reviving the dance that goes with it. I see this course as another step in that direction”.

Speaking about how this ties into her academic career, “I hadn’t studied baroque dance before this course but my interest in dance history sits alongside my reading and research as a literary historian; it all contributes to a more holistic and enjoyable understanding of social and cultural history. In my research (which is pre-baroque), I mostly work with obscure manuscripts and digital photos of them. I’m not at that level with dance history yet, but I had a great time preparing and teaching Renaissance dances at the Galway Early Music Festival this year and Playford (English country) dances back at that Festival in 2019″. Describing the process of having a week to learn new dances, Felicity explains that “Mary Collins, the tutor, wisely chose a variety of dances with different numbers of dancers, so we didn’t all have to learn everything. Between us, we performed 5 baroque dances and a final medley of jigs and reels. One of the other dancers, Anna who has a background in Irish dancing, choreographed the medley with steps we already knew, which was a fun way to end the show”.

Felicity describes the differences between modern and period dance styles as such, “Good posture, gracefulness, and lessened turnout from ballet came in handy, but the actual footwork, rhythms, floor patterns, and even basic arm positions were different enough from any dance styles we’d done before that we had to really concentrate to learn the steps and choreography and overwrite our muscle memory.” Freddie Ní Amhláin, dancer, who has a background in contemporary describes the relationship between baroque dance and contemporary dance as “Both contemporary and baroque dance are shaped by their associated culture and clothing styles. The baroque style was fairly stiff and a sort of gentrification of many European folk dances although the exchange goes both ways. Contemporary dance draws from classical ballet and modern dance: classical ballet being theatrical (the evolution of sharing the French vocabulary and the basic positions)”.

Freddie also has a chamber music background and has taken part in ConCorda Chamber Music for Strings among other courses. Their background in music contributes to their dancing, Freddie explains that, “The basic musicality skills for dance and music are the same. This course has taught me more clearly the importance of keeping the tempo accurate rather than keeping the disciplines separate. Saying something is dance music means nothing if you have no image of the dance and the metre, phrasing and tempo required. You cannot feel the tempo being off until you dance to it. ”

Learn more about IYBO at iybo.ie. The Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra is a partnership between the Irish Baroque Orchestra and the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras.

Photo by Bríd O’Donovan.