Tullamore International Summer Organ Series

Jan Vermeire was born in 1968 and commenced organ studies with Robert Deleersnyder at the Music Academy of Veurne. He continued studying at the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels with Professor Hubert Schoonbroodt. and later with the Viennese musical pedagogue Hedda Szamosi. He also studied choral direction with Professor Florian Heyerick at the Royal Conservatoire in Ghent. Jan Vermeire presides over the new Lapon organ (2011) in the modernist Church of Our Lady of the Dunes (“The Cathedral of Light”) in Koksijde, Flanders. He is a busy organ recitalist, having played last year at festivals in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Jan Vermeire is the artistic director of the International Organ Festival Koksijde and Veurne-Nieuwpoort, and also of the Festival International d’Orgue en Flandre (France). He has made several recordings on historical organs in Flanders. In 2008 he recorded a disc on the marvellous Woehl organ in Cuxhaven (Germany), together with the Ottone Brass Quintet performing works by Alexandre Guilmant, César Franck, Léon Boëllmann and Camille Saint-Saëns. In 2012 a new disc was released with Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ works on the Jürgen Ahrend organ of Porrentruy in Switzerland. In 2016 he participates in a project to make a recording of the complete works of  German early baroque composer Samuel Scheidt.

Tullamore Academy of Music Chamber Choir was founded in 2007 as part of a performing groups initiative undertaken by The Academy of Music in Tullamore. Each member is a student of voice with the Academy and has a different and wide-ranging background in solo, operatic and competitive performance. The choir’s repertoire spans from early to contemporary music, and they have had great success in almost every national choral festival, including many awards at the Cork International Choral Festival where they won The John Mannion Memorial Trophy as well as the Perpetual Trophy for the Performance of Irish Contemporary Choral Music. They feature regularly on both RTE television and radio and have appeared on Sky 191 television with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin celebrating the double canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII.  This year promises to be the most exciting in the history of the choir to date with two very significant events: they were selected to perform as part of the official state 1916 commemorations on Easter Sunday, a live television broadcast from Collins Barracks in Dublin with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. The Academy Chamber Choir has also been chosen to represent Ireland at the prestigious biennial choral competition in Miltenberg, Germany. Only six choirs are selected from around the world to represent their country in the four-day international choral event in the picturesque town of Elsenfeld in July. It is the first time in the competition’s history that Ireland will be represented.

Ciarán Brady has an Honours Master’s degree in Music and vocal performance from Maynooth University where he also directed the University Chamber Choir. Further postgraduate studies brought him to Germany where he trained in advanced vocal technique with Prof. Markus Goritzky at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg. Ciarán is Director of the Academy of Music in Tullamore where he is also a professional vocal coach with many award winning students. His voice training started at the age of 10 as a boy treble and Head Chorister of the famous Palestrina Choir. Professionally he was a member of the RTE Chamber Choir and founder member of the National Chamber Choir. He also has extensive experience as a soloist and recording artist and has worked with companies such as Opera Northern Ireland and  Opera Ireland. Ciarán is also founder and conductor of the award winning Moate Children’s Choir.