Introducing Guest Speakers for From Inspiration to Motivation: Making Music for Young Audiences

On Friday 11th December, Improvised Music Company and The Ark host a half-day professional development event to give inspiration and support to musicians who work or wish to work with children, exploring different ways in which music with or for children can be both artistically satisfying for the musicians as well as exciting and engaging for young audiences.

The day will begin with an inspirational presentation from three pairings of Irish and international producers and artists, outlining their process and what they learnt through creating work for children.

Learn more about the event and the projects HERE.

As there are a limited number of spaces, please register to reserve your place HERE.

Speaker Biographies - Catapluf's Musical Journey

Adriano Adewale (percussionist/composer)
Brazilian percussionist/composer Adriano Adewale is a versatile musician and performer, known for his unconventional and exploratory approach to music, and for his ability to create magical soundscapes from the seemingly banal.

Martel Ollerenshaw (Producer/ Commissioner)
Based in London and working internationally, Martel Ollerenshaw is an arts broker and creative producer. With a wide portfolio of skills and interests, she works actively with artists, organisations and festivals to create and produce work that is pioneering and often genre blurring. Between 2002 and 2017, she worked at Serious International Music Producers/ London Jazz Festival, where her portfolio included Seriously Talented, the acclaimed suite of talent development programmes for professional musicians working in jazz and improvised music. She now leads her own company Arts & Parts Ltd, which is a flexible vehicle to create and produce performing arts projects of all kinds, with a particular emphasis on music and interdisciplinary work.

"I worked with multi-instrumentalist Adriano Adewale for this project aimed at children aged 5 - 7. The concept I devised was both colourful and amusing, being caricature-driven, creating Catapluf in the image of Adriano himself, exploring rhythms and sounds of the world, and the fact music can be found in everything: pans, water, drums, and even the human body."

Speaker Biographies - Mile(s)tones

Cleo Janse (Commissioner, Big Bang Festival Belgium)
Cleo Janse is the promoter of the young audiences program at Handelsbeurs Concert Hall in Ghent, Belgium. From 2010-2016, she worked as the production manager at Zonzo Compagnie, a Belgian production company for adventurous music projects for young audiences, such as the Big Bang Festival, with festival editions in 13 cities across Europe. From 2016-2019, she worked for the cultural department of the city government of Gent. At Handelsbeurs Concert Hall, she is developing a new program with concerts for children and youngsters.

Simon Segers (drummer)
Ghent-based drummer Simon Segers has been intrigued by music from as long as he can remember. The record collection of his father was a great artifact to get in touch with all kinds of music, from extreme freejazz to classical to mainstream pop. Where his dad was a great influence to listen, it was his older brother (guitarist Frederik Segers) that made him play the drums. From the early teenage years, they play together in all kinds of projects. These early explorations developed great love for long & profound cooperations. Around the age of 17 Simon got really intrigued by the raw jazz-rock of the late 60’s and early 70’s. It revealed that energetic rock drumming is combinable with the virtuosity of jazz drumming. The music of Soft Machine, Can, Miles Electric and many others made Simon dig deeper. And at the age of 20 his life consisted mostly studying the drums, taking lessons and playing in bands. The band and the music it produces is the most important thing to Simon. The last few years he has been active in rock and jazz and improvised formations. The jazz trio De Beren Gieren and the rockband STADT are his personal projects in which he participates the most as a creator of music. He also plays with Dijf Sanders, MDCIII, Sylvie Kreusch, and many more.

Speaker Biographies - String Play

Mary Barnecutt (cellist)
Mary Barnecutt is a Dublin-based musician, educator and curator who works with a variety of artists, bands, orchestras and educational projects. She has written music for short films, theatre, dance productions, and has worked with artists such as, Julie Feeney, Vyvienne Long, Nell Regan, Adrian Crowley, Seti the 1st, Ray Harman and Ruth O’Mahony Brady. She manages two string projects in Dublin primary schools and in 2019 created the improvised music show, String Play for children with her sister, Kathrine for the Ark, in association with IMC.

She is curator of the weekly Sundays@Noon Concert Series in the Hugh Lane Gallery and co-director of Spike, Dublin’s annual alternative cello festival. Between 2017-2020 she was cellist and vocalist with Teać Damsa in their touring production of Loch Na hEala. which she has toured to South Korea, New Zealand, Canada, UK, Hong Kong and the Australia. With poet Nell Regan she has produced an ongoing series of music/poetry videos called 'Resonate'.​

Aisling O’Gorman (Producer at The Ark)
Aisling O’Gorman has been working at The Ark, Europe’s first dedicated children’s cultural centre, as Music Programmer since 2011. In this role she has re-established music as a core art form in The Ark’s programme for children aged 2 to 12. Highlights include the expansion of the Tradfest Family Hub programme, numerous music participation programmes as well as the commissioning and producing of a range of new music shows for young audiences many of which have toured nationally. This includes Monster Music Improv (2016) which was a co-production with Improvised Music Company. As Creative Arts Manager since 2017 Aisling now leads across The Ark’s multi-disciplinary programme and has developed a number of new initiatives in the areas of Early Years, Artist Development, Diversity and Inclusion and CPD programmes for teachers. Recent success with a Creative Europe grant means that she is now the programmer and producer of Ireland’s first international music festival for young audiences which takes place annually until 2022 as part of a network of such festivals taking place in 12 different cities across Europe and Canada.

Kenneth KIlleen (Director of Improvised Music Company)
Kenneth has been professionally involved in the music industry since the mid 90’s, as a musician, teacher, promoter and producer, and has enjoyed the opportunity to work with many great artists from Ireland and abroad.

Kenneth joined the IMC team 11 years ago. He studied jazz guitar at Newpark and ran a successful jazz & contemporary improv venue in Dublin for 5 years before joining IMC as General Manager in 2005. His current role as Artistic Director includes curating the IMC’s programming content, it's four festivals, as well as implementing IMC’s resource strategy and development.

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