Music At UCC

19/10/2026

We are excited to bring you a very special edition of FUAIM for Jazz Weekend featuring the Mulcahy-McGrath Jazz Guitar Duo! 🎶


🗓️ Friday 23rd October 2026, 1:10pm in the Boole Library Creative Zone, UCC or on livestream.

Fáilte roimh chách!

We are back in the Creative Zone in the Boole Library this week for a concert that will be the perfect start to the Cork Jazz Festival. Join us for a programme of standards from the Great American Songbook, Latin Jazz and original music by the wonderful guitarists Tom Mulcahy and John McGrath.

We hope you can join us for our second week in the brilliant venue in the Library Creative Zone, or on Music at UCC's YouTube livestream.

Tom Mulcahy is an experienced jazz guitarist. He holds a Master's in Music and teaches in jazz guitar in UCC’s Department of Music. Tom has studied with the legendary Pat Martino in Philadelphia and is a much sought after jazz teacher and player in Cork city.

John McGrath’s extensive musical bio includes tours with Loudest Whisper, Cork Opera House shows with David Hayes, and Everyman Theatre shows with Linda Kenny’s Singalong Songbook. John was a founder member of The Dynamics, Cookie and the Vaudevilles and Runaway Retros. These days John works mainly in the jazz genre.

13/10/2026

Fuaim Autumn Lecture Series continues this Thursday, 15th October at 11am with
Compositions, Arrangements and Adaptations for Seven-String Solo Guitar
by
Rubén Darío López Ospina

Join us in Ó Riada Hall, Music Department, Sunday's Well Road, Cork
With Q & A after the presentation.

BIO
Rubén Darío López Ospina is a Colombian classical guitarist, composer, arranger, educator, and researcher. He holds a Master’s degree in Musical Composition with New Technologies from the International University of La Rioja, Spain, and a degree in Music from the University of Nariño, Colombia, where his final project received the distinction of Meritorious. He also completed advanced studies in classical guitar performance at the Escola Luthier d’Arts Musicals in Barcelona.

Abstract:
This lecture-recital presents a selection of original compositions, arrangements and adaptations for seven-string nylon guitar, exploring the instrument as a space for performance, composition, and creative adaptation. Drawing on Rubén Darío López Ospina’s experience as a Colombian guitarist, composer, arranger, and educator, the programme reflects connections between classical guitar practice, Colombian and Latin American musical traditions, and contemporary approaches to sound and musical creation.
The presentation will combine live performance with commentary on the musical and technical decisions behind the works, including the adaptation of repertoire to the extended range of the seven-string guitar, approaches to texture, register, harmony, idiomatic writing, extended techniques, and the relationship between composition and performance.

Full details via our events page (link in bio)

12/10/2026

FUAIM Welcomes Ian Wilson this week, with Music by Morton Feldman 🎶🎹


Friday 16th October 2026

Boole Library Creative Zone, UCC

1:10pm - fáilte roimh chách!


FUAIM Music at UCC is delighted to announce a brand new venue for this week's concert - the Creative Zone in the UCC Library on main campus - as part of a collaboration with the library's wonderful programme of public events and engagement. Starting this coming Friday, the next three FUAIM concerts will be hosted in the Creative Zone and we look forward to welcoming you along each week.

PROGRAMME

Extensions 3 (1952, 6')
Intermission 6 (1953, 8')
Palais de Mari (1986, 24')

The Creative Zone is located on the ground floor of the Boole Library, opposite the quad on UCC's main campus: go to the right after entering the library through the main door. Library and FUAIM staff will be there to guide you to the performance space.

All FUAIM concerts begin at 1:10pm, admission is free and all are welcome!

10/10/2026

Happy UCC Open Day! Here is a look at the events happening at the UCC Music Department @ Sunday's Well 🎶

Shuttle buses available between Western Road (UCC Main Campus) and the UCC Music Dep from 11:30 🚌
Join us on Main Campus as well for a chat at our Information Stand in the Main Restaurant and UCC Music & performances at the Honan Plaza

09/10/2026

This week, FUAIM welcomes Oli Garde, harpsichord, French Masters of the Harpsichord: Couperin & Rameau

Join us today Friday 9 Oct in the Ó Riada Hall in the UCC Music Departments at 1:10pm. Free and open to all!

The programme will feature music by François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, with explanations on the style : its richness, elegance and imagination of the French Baroque harpsichord tradition.

French harpsichordist Oli Garde studied at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he specialised in historical keyboard performance. As a soloist and continuo player, he has performed internationally at venues including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Tokyo Opera City, the Sydney Conservatorium, Spectrum NYC, the Opernhaus Magdeburg, and the Hôtel de Soubise in Paris.

In 2007, he was awarded Third Prize at the International Telemann Competition in Magdeburg with the ensemble La Follia. His recordings include Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pièces de clavecin (1724), Les Six Cordes d'Apollon, and Clavecin au Clair de Lune, presenting works by Mozart and Beethoven on the harpsichord, released on the France Baroque / L'Asnée label.

Alongside his performing career, Oli Garde is Artistic Director of France Baroque and founder of the Académie des Musiques Anciennes en Pays de Savoie, an annual summer academy that has become an established meeting place for professional and amateur musicians specialising in historically informed performance.

He is currently pursuing doctoral research on musicians' motor skills, exploring the relationship between movement quality, performers' physical and mental wellbeing, and artistic performance in public concert settings. Through his performances, teaching and research, he seeks to combine historical understanding with a living, expressive approach to Baroque music.

07/10/2026

Open Day at University College Cork -
Visit us in the Music Department on Sundays Well Rd for a tour this Saturday, 10 October at 1pm!

Why UCC Music? 👇 💯

At UCC, our Arts-Music Honours degree (CK104) pairs Music with the ...

07/10/2026

Open Day at University College Cork
Visit us on Sundays Well for a tour of the Music Department!
1pm this Saturday, 10 October.

https://youtu.be/IPhmDoRg-Rc?is=kM9-iJ_PkqoL16kW

At UCC, our Arts-Music Honours degree (CK104) pairs Music with the ...

05/10/2026

Join us at the Music Department at this Saturdays UCC Open Day and discover why UCC is the perfect place to explore your creativity, develop your talent, and build a future in music.

The Open Day will take place on Saturday, 10th October from 11.30am.

Find out about our Undergraduate degree, meet faculty and students, experience live performances and tour of facilities!

📍 Where: Department of Music, 136 Sunday’s Well Rd, Cork, T23 X6Y0

Shuttle buses will depart from Western Road to the dept every 15 minutes from 11.30am.

05/10/2026

FUAIM Autumn Lecture Series commences this Thursday, 8th October at 11am with Album production (“enabling”) as ‘research-based practice’ – the studio as a site for fieldwork'
by
Lucy Durán, Professor Emerita at SOAS University of London.

Join us in Ó Riada Hall, Music Department, Sunday's Well Road, Cork
With Q & A after the presentation.


Abstract:
Lucy Durán, Professor Emerita at SOAS University of London, presents her ideas about methodologies, research potential and impact of working in the studio as “producer” of music of oral tradition (in her case, primarily from Mali). She suggests that production in the studio can be an intense fieldwork experience that flips around the “practice-based research” trope of fieldwork, to “research based- practice”. With 33 albums, featuring Toumani Diabaté, Bassekou Kouyaté, Ballaké Sissoko and others, she has won three Grammy nominations and numerous awards and has established the signature sound of those musicians, though the process was not always easy and involved much preparation and deliberation. Her primary aim is to provide an informed representation of the individual within the tradition. Durán thinks her approach to “producing” is better described as “enabling”, a term that reflects collaborative, informal interaction on both sides of the “control room”, providing space for negotiating composition, and encouraging creativity and personal style. But even as ‘enabler’, there are issues of positionality and power imbalance that need to be addressed.


Here is a brief selection of Lucy’s productions by Malian artists, including:
1. Toumani Diabaté and Ballaké Sissoko: New Ancient Strings, 1999, reissued on Chrysalis 2025
2. Bassekou Kouyaté: Segu blue; and I speak fula; both on Out Here Records
3. Trio Da Kali, Ladilikan on World Circuit Records with Kronos Quartet, and Bagola (One World Records)
Reading
Durán, Lucy 2011. “Music production as tool of research, and impact”, Ethnomusicology Forum 20/2, 229-32
Meintjes, Louise 2003. “Sound of Africa!:Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio”. Duke University Press


Web: https://www.ucc.ie/en/fmt/music/ for further details!