Solo

Written for me

• 2022 Ian Wilson, ScullySolo percussion, six movements, one for each painting in the Hugh Lane Gallery's Scully Room. Premiered there at Sundays at Noon.
• 2021 Abigail Smith, Certain of UncertaintyMarimba. The winner of the Finding a Voice Emerging Composer Competition, premiered on Culture Night in Clonmel.
• 2017 Sam Perkin, WavesPercussion and string orchestra. Premiered with the Irish Chamber Orchestra in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, as 365 Variations on a Gesture, and played again at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2018.
• 2017 Jonathan Nangle, Upward into Dark Blue AirWoodblocks, pitched metals, kick drum and electronics. Premiered at my recital at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
• 2016 Tom Lane, Beats, Bells and BridgesThree site-specific pieces for the Cork Midsummer Festival, in the UCC Quad, on the Mardyke Bridge (played as an instrument) and as a duet with the Shandon Bells.
• 2016 Elliot Murphy, Time DilationOne of seven new pieces for an Irish Composers' Collective concert at Quarter Block Party in Cork, for which I asked every composer to write for the same set-up.
• 2014 Tom Lane, Oh Mistress MineA chorale from his music for the Abbey Theatre's Twelfth Night, in which I was the only musician. I have played it in my recitals ever since.
• 2011 Sam Perkin, Prelude and FugueViolin and marimba, written at my request. The fugue is on my album In Time.

My own pieces

• Breaking The Tile

  An improvised piece for a large tile that breaks as I play, changing its sound as it goes, with a bass drum, metal pipes and a chopping board.

  Watch it on Facebook

• With the dancer Marion Cronin

  A semi-improvised piece of about 20 minutes, devised with the dance artist Marion Cronin for Music for Galway and Galway Dance Project, with home-made instruments, gongs, tuned tiles, rope drums and more. We performed it at the Black Box in Galway in November 2023, after a solo set from each of us.

  See the set-up in Music for Galway's workshop video

• Home-made instruments

  Tuned aluminium chimes, metal plates and gongs that I have built or designed, which I use in improvised interludes and in calm outdoor concerts.

  Watch an hour-long improvisation in my garden

Recital programmes

I shape every recital to the room. I like to know the size of the space and its acoustics before choosing what to play, and how much time there is to set up, so the same idea can become a quiet lunchtime concert or a full evening with a stage full of instruments.

These are some of the kinds of programme I have played.

• Skins, woods and metals

  A journey through the three families of percussion, from drums to marimba and pieces of wood, to vibraphone, gongs and cymbals. The first half of my Rising Star recital at the National Concert Hall was built this way, and it also works as three separate concerts.

• Things that are not instruments

  Instruments you would expect alongside things you would not, from tiles and metal pipes to junk percussion, some of which sound more melodic than the instruments themselves.

• Marimba recital

  Bach, Keiko Abe, Philip Glass, Gordon Stout, Eric Sammut, Evelyn Glennie and more, as for the Dublin Philharmonic Society in 2017. It also makes a short lunchtime concert.

• Family concert

  Short, lively pieces for marimba, snare drum and a few surprises, such as Matthias Schmitt's Ghanaia, Gene Koshinski's Swerve, Ella Macens's Verve and Evelyn Glennie's A Little Prayer.

• Outdoors and site-specific

  Music that uses a place as an instrument, like Beats, Bells and Bridges in Cork, or a calm outdoor concert on my home-made chimes, plates and gongs.

• Percussion and electronics

  New pieces made with composers, as in On Sequences with the composer and sound designer Peter Power, for the Cork Orchestral Society in 2019.

In Time

My solo album, from Steve Reich to Bach and new Irish music. Released on RTÉ lyric fm.

Listen and read more

Repertoire

Music I have played as a soloist, from concertos to pieces for a single drum.