Sweet Music to Sharon’s Ears
22 November 2006
“I thought I’d died and gone to heaven”...the words of an audience member leaving Carnegie Hall in New York in November 2005. He had not been in the presence of a great international orchestra, but at a 10th anniversary concert by the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland.
Such words are music to the ears of Sharon Treacy-Dunne, the orchestra’s director and founder, whose drive and inspiration have taken around 140 young musicians across the USA, to Finland, the Czech Republic and to performances at Carnegie Hall and the Boston Symphony Hall.
A former pupil at St. Louis Secondary School in Dundalk, Sharon returned to teach at the school after graduating from University College Dublin. When, by chance, she happened upon a collection of unused musical instruments locked away in a storeroom, the idea for an orchestra began to form. “During the 1950s, the nuns had acquired some really good quality instruments, but they hadn’t been used for years,” she recalls. “There was a great tradition of music in the school but the Troubles were going full tilt and parents hadn’t the means or the interest to send their children to music lessons.” Undeterred by her meagre annual budget of 25 punts (Irish pounds), Sharon persuaded the school’s new acting principal to acquire for her the astronomical sum of 4,000 punts. With it, she got the instruments renovated, lent them to students, brought in tutors and started a school orchestra.
“In 1995, after the ceasefires, the border opened up and we were able to travel more safely with the kids. Sinead McDonald, who taught at the Abbey Grammar School in Newry was keen to involve more boys in music, so we hatched the idea of a joint orchestra. In no time, people were knocking down the door to get in. “We invited a number of Protestant schools to join us. Wellington College in Belfast and Banbridge Academy responded and we have formed links with the South Ulster Youth Orchestra and Band,” recalls Sharon.
Seven-year funding by the European Union’s Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, administered by Cooperation Ireland, has put the Orchestra onto a sustainable footing and created a full-time job for its tireless director “The other thing which has brought new status is the appointment of Gearoid Grant as our principal conductor,” says Sharon. “I had to pester the life out of him and doorstep him shamelessly to get him on board. But he really is the man for the job.
He accepts nothing but the best and gets so much out of the kids.”Sharon is just back from an extensive trip around the States, laying the ground for the Orchestra’s next tour with its colourful new cross-community project, Piping Hot, based on the musical traditions of Protestant culture. “This orchestra means the world to me”, she says. “I wouldgo to the ends of the earth for those kids. If at the end of your life you can say that you did something that made a positive difference to people’s lives, you can count yourself happy and fulfilled.” For further information contact: 00 353 86 8283268
or crossborderorchestra@eircom.net