Frank Maher Classical Music Awards I’m always glad to give some recognition to our young musicians whether or not they are planning to make the art the basis of their careers. With the spotlight shining on them at this time of the year, Barbara Elliott of Touchstone Communications tells me that the 2024 Top Security/Frank Maher Classical Music Award – valued at €5,000 and Ireland’s largest classical music competition for secondary schools – has been presented to pianist Ai Lin Sun (17) who studies at Dublin’s Institute of Education.
Earlier this month she was one of the six finalists at the Royal College of Physicians where her programme comprised two of Rakhmaninov’s Etude Tableaux and Beethoven’s Op 57 Appassionata Sonata.
The awards were created in 2001 by Top Security chairman Emmet O’Rafferty to honour the memory of his late music teacher Fr Frank Maher at Castleknock College. Commenting on the result Emmet O’Rafferty congratulated Ai Lin Sun and the other finalists for their excellent performances and reminded those present that Fr Maher’s passion for classical music inspired many students and that it was a privilege to support talented young musicians as they embark on their professional journeys.
The award, established in 2001 by Emmet O’Rafferty, chairman of the firm ‘Top Security’, honours Vincentian Fr Frank Maher (1929-1998), who taught music and other subjects at Castleknock College, Emmet O’Rafferty’s alma mater. Fr Maher was also music director of the college liturgy who demanded a high standard from the boys and usually attained it.
The awards’ aim, by the way, is to ‘showcase outstanding young musical talent in Irish schools and is open to sixth year post-primary students of strings, woodwind, brass and piano. The €5,000 top prize must be used to attend a place of recognised tuition, a course of study in Ireland or abroad or on a purchase necessary for the development of their talent’. Ai Lin Sun plans using her prize money to take part in international music competitions.
The judging panel comprised Dr Gerard Gillen, emeritus professor of music at Maynooth University, internationally famed Dublin-born classical pianist Veronica McSwiney and Wolfgang Klos, professor of viola at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna.
Commenting on Ai Lin Sun’s performances, Dr Gillen said ‘she made a compelling impression with her combination of outstanding technical skill and expansive range of emotional expression that made for performances that were rich in colour, excitement, and imaginative insight. She is clearly a performer whose future will be followed with the keenest interest’.
The other finalists, who each received a bursary of €500, were violinists Maedhbh Ní Chathasaigh (18), Ballincollig, Co Cork and Chloe O’Connor (18), Donnybrook, Dublin; cellist Oscar Casey (18), Douglas, Cork and pianists Aidan Keane (17), Trim, Co Meath and Amhlaoibh Ó Siocháin Ó Beoláin (18), Glanmire, Co Cork. Last year’s winner, Joe O’Grady, is now studying music as part of his bachelor’s degree at Harvard University in Massachusetts.
Some of the previous winners went on to other prestigious schools in New York, Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg and London.