The composer and pianist Michael Holohan (b.1956) has resided in Drogheda since 1983. He has won numerous prizes as well as Arts Council awards to attend master classes, in the 1980s, with Messiaen, Boulez, Xenakis, Berio and Lachenmann in France.
His compositions have been performed and broadcast both at home and internationally. Career highlights in Drogheda include Cromwell 1994 for the Drogheda 800 (RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Lourdes Church); The Mass of Fire 1995, for the Augustinian 700 (RTÉ TV live broadcast). No Sanctuary 1997 with Nobel Laureate and poet Seamus Heaney (Augustinian Church); Remembrance Sunday Service and Drogheda Unification 600 (RTÉ TV live broadcast) in St Peter’s Church of Ireland November 2012; Gallipoli, The GPO and Flanders in The National Concert Hall and The Droichead Arts Centre 2016, The Hills are Crying Francis Ledwidge song cycle for the poet’s centenary in The National Gallery Dublin and Slane, Co.Meath 2017.
Recent concerts have featured, as soloist, the renowned uilleann piper Mick O’Brien, The Con Tempo String Quartet and The Boyne Valley Chamber Orchestra at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in 2018, The Road to Lough Swilly and in 2019 The Airs of Old Drogheda. His last concert Angels We Have Heard on High and The Airs of Old Drogheda was held in December 2019 in the Augustinian Church.
A founding member and former chairman of the Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, Michael is also a former chairman of the Association of Irish Composers. In 1999 he was elected to Aosdána and recently served as chair of the Toscaireacht (Aosdána’s governing body).
He has released two CDs: Fields of Blue and White, compositions for piano recorded by the Irish pianist Thérese Fahy and with the assistance of an Arts Council Deis Recording Award, The Road to Lough Swilly with Mick O’Brien uilleann pipes, The Con Tempo String Quartet and The Boyne Valley Chamber Orchestra and is currently working on a piano cycle, Walking with Hamilton, based on the life of the great Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton and a new orchestral CD The Airs and Songs of Old Drogheda.
Book your tickets
Venue: St Augustine’s Church
Shop Street, Drogheda
Date: Saturday, September 7
Time: 8pm – 10pm (doors 7.30pm)
Tickets: €25