Eamonn Quinn, the self-described “oddball” who founded the Louth Contemporary Music Society in the northeast of Ireland in 2006, is neither a composer nor a performer. It shows in the best way. Quinn, who works in education, was introduced to new music through his wife Gemma while studying at Queen’s University in Belfast, beginning with the works of Arvo Pärt. He has since developed a taste in contemporary music that is refreshingly personal and iconoclastic. Where many contemporary music festivals appear curated by name-recognition or based on highly abstract intellectual concepts, the concerts at the LCMS are guided mainly by Quinn’s ear.
Quinn’s charisma has brought composers such as Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Terry Riley, Salvatore Sciarrino, and many others to the festival. In 2018, he received the Belmont Prize from the Munich-based Forberg-Schneider Foundation, a prize that has gone to such consummate new-music professionals as Alex Ross and Jörg Widmann. The 2023 edition of the LCMS festival, titled “Folks’ Music,” features new works by Linda Catlin Smith and Cassandra Miller; Caroline Shaw’s “How to Fold the Wind”; pieces by Clara Ianotta, José María Sánchez-Verdú, the unknown Greek-Argentine composer Graciela Paraskevaídis, and more. “All of us: the audience, the musicians, the composers, the door staff, the person who writes the program, the people who make the tea and coffee, the taxi drivers, the critics, make invaluable contributions,” Quinn wrote me in an email. “The door staff who smile as the audience arrive. They are priceless. Hence the title for this year’s festival, ‘Folks’ Music.”
I spoke with Quinn by phone call in February, shortly after the death of his father in January (Quinn also added some thoughts later by email). It is perhaps representative of Quinn’s personality that most of what he recalled about his late dad in our conversation was related to the best jokes they told each other.
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