Young musicians from across the West will congregate in Gort at the weekend for the third annual Junior Orchestra Festival taking place in the South Galway town on Sunday.

Close to 170 young classical musicians from Sligo, Ennis, Galway, Athenry and Gort will get together to play from their latest orchestra repertoires.
The festival is the only event of its kind in the West of Ireland and its quality and importance was recognised on a national level last year, when Coole Music received the Irish Aviation Authority’s Special Achievement Award in the National Concert Hall in February 2009 for running the event.
One of the festival’s highlights takes place on Sunday afternoon, when the various musical groups converge into a huge orchestra to perform the finale, a piece especially composed for the occasion by Katharina Baker, director of Coole Music.
Coole Music School was founded in September 2005. The driving artistic force behind the initiative was Katharina, Ardrahan resident and graduate of the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm.
With Coole Park as one of Ireland’s most inspiring nature reserves with a rich cultural history just around the corner, the name lent itself naturally to the school.
Gort Community School and principal, Denis Corry welcomed the new music school into their building for evening tuition and some local businesses sponsored its first instruments.
A month later, a celebration concert marked the official opening of the new school. Initially, Coole Music had around 80 students and five teachers involved. Since then, the number of students and faculty has more than doubled.
The greatest challenge has been, and still is, sustaining a viable operation, explained director Katharina.
“From the beginning, the social aim to make quality music education affordable was a strong part of our initiative. We have not increased our fees since the school started almost five years ago. At the same time, the school needs to offer the professional teachers a living wage that makes it possible for them to remain with the school on a long-term basis. This naturally creates an economic problem in this country where music education is not subsidised by the State, as is common practice in a lot of other European countries. It can be disheartening at times that although Coole Music is mostly run on a voluntary basis, it still presents a challenge to make ends meet and it can be difficult to plan for the future,” explained Katharina.
The German musician is keen to look at the positive side too. She points out that the group has received funding from Galway County Council, the VEC and Clare County Council at various points over the past five years.
“This year, we will receive funding from Music Network for our instrument bank and we will be out in the community fundraising for matching funds for that. However, if I had a free wish for the future of Coole Music, it would be that we could offer our music teachers a ‘real job’ with all the benefits of permanent employment, while keeping the students’ fees affordable. It seems to be a long way to go yet. Until then, we will do our very best to let Coole Music’s artistic life grow and develop in all its activities,” she revealed.
When Katharina founded Coole Music, she was working closely with her sister-in-law, Caroline Baker. In 2007, Kinvara resident and active parent committee member Fiona Buckley became co-director of the group. Today, Coole Music offers tuition in classical violin, viola, cello, piano, recorder, oboe, flute, clarinet, guitar, mandolin, melodeon, voice training and trumpet.
Furthermore, Coole Music’s activities include Coole Music Orchestra, Coole Kidz Choir, Toddler Tunes, five-string ensembles, eight chamber music groups and a percussion outreach programme for national schools around the county.
Coole Music Orchestra, which will perform at this weekend’s festival, has featured in arts festivals around the county and beyond, and has toured to Germany, where it performed two celebrated concerts in June 2009.
Other groups that will perform include Athenry Music School Orchestra, Sligo Academy of Music, Galway Junior Youth Orchestra and Clare Music Makers.
The Junior Orchestra Festival takes place on Sunday at 3pm in the Lady Gregory Hotel, Gort. A further element of the festival is a radio workshop with Lyric FM in Gort Community School. Tickets are available at www.coole-music.com.