Dave Flynn will be resident as part of the IMC (Improvised Music Company)/Garter Lane Navigator programme 2024.
His residency will include both an open workshop and performance (see below for all details)
I’m delighted to be IMC Navigator Musician in Residence in Waterford. I’ll be drawing inspiration from the improvisational spirit of TV show ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ by using audience prompts to create unique musical pathways. You, the audience, will become my co-composers, guiding the direction of new spontaneous compositions.
I’m dedicating these improvisations to the memory of Waterford’s own Louis Stewart, an extraordinary musician who deeply inspired me. Though Louis was renowned for his jazz mastery, my residency will move between genres, from jazz and Irish trad to classical and beyond.
Improvisation has been central to my work, whether through the spontaneous ornamentation in my Irish trad playing, improv within my modern classical compositions, my Conoglese-Irish collaborations with Niwel Tsumbu, or my work with jazz experts like Hugh Buckley, Neil Yates and Matthew Berrill.
Join me at Garter Lane Studios on Thursday 24th at 2:30-4pm No.5 O’Connell St X91ER27 for a workshop where I’ll work with participants on new approaches to audience-guided improvisations. Then, experience this spontaneous collaboration on Sunday 27th at 6pm when I’ll perform art-inspired improvisations at WGOA, Waterford Gallery of Art.
About Dave Flynn
Celebrated by the New York Times for the “power and grittiness” of his music, composer, conductor and guitarist Dave Flynn is a musician of international renown. Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, he redefined orchestral music by creating the cross-genre Irish Memory Orchestra: a “formidable collective of musicians” (The Irish Times) — and the first and only orchestra in the Western world to perform exclusively by memory.
Amalgamating orchestral, jazz, rock and folk elements with deft and deep understanding, his compositions have been performed by the likes of the Prague Chamber Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, New Juilliard Ensemble, Smith Quartet, New Zealand String Quartet, ConTempo Quartet, Vanbrugh Quartet, ConTempo Quartet, Dublin Guitar Quartet, Laura Snowden, Craig Ogden, John Feeley and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
Published by Reed Music, Frisbee Publications, and Mel Bay (2020’s Complete Works for Solo Guitar), Flynn’s work is regularly featured by broadcasters around the world—including WNYC’s John Schaefer, who dedicated a special edition of New Sounds to Flynn’s work in 2009; and an extensive live interview to commemorate the US launch of his First Hand Records release Irish Minimalism in 2021.
Privileged to perform and record with some of the world’s best musicians across several genres, Dave Flynn has played at prestigious venues including MoMa (New York), Moscow Cathedral and Ireland’s National Concert Hall. Touring his acclaimed music worldwide, Flynn has performed in Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and all over Europe including Germany, the UK, Russia, Estonia, Romania, France, Sweden, the Czech Republic and his native Ireland.
Flynn is a regular collaborator with renowned traditional Irish musicians including Martin Hayes, Liz Carroll, Paddy Glackin, Tommy Peoples, Mick O’Brien, and Máirtín O’Connor. In 2019 he became the first Composer-in-Residence at Ireland’s state guest-house Farmleigh and led the ground-breaking world premiere of The Vision Symphony by the Irish Memory Orchestra and 26 blind/vision-impaired musicians at the multi-disciplinary arts centre glór.
