2020 Waltons Music for Schools Competition Finalists Concert Adjudicators

Waltons New School of Music

We’re delighted to announce the two adjudicators of our 2020 Waltons Music for Schools Competition Finalists Concert – Kathleen Turner and John Spillane. The Finalists Concert will take place in the National Concert Hall on Monday, 23 March. See the 2020 Competition web page for more information about this year’s Competition.

Kathleen Turner

Dr Kathleen Turner is a singer, songwriter, community musician and Director of the MA in Community Music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. She is also an experienced community choral leader and has directed a number of significant performances. Kathleen holds a PhD in Arts Practice (her dissertation explored the role of the community musician in the process of social regeneration), as well as Masters degrees in both Community Music and Ritual Chant and Song. In 2008 she was invited by the Irish Chamber Orchestra to pilot Sing Out with Strings, a community music initiative in Limerick City, which now provides hundreds of children with free access to singing, songwriting and instrumental tuition. From 2008 to 2014, she continued as Community Engagement Manager for the Irish Chamber Orchestra, implementing a number of projects bringing live music into the classroom and community. Kathleen combines her educational work with a busy career as singer and songwriter, which included the release of her debut album, Like a Lion, in December 2019.

John Spillane

A native of Cork, which he lovingly calls ‘the centre of the universe’, John Spillane is an acclaimed singer/songwriter and two-time Meteor award winner who has recorded several solo albums and whose songs have been performed and recorded by a number of prominent Irish artists, including Christy Moore, Sharon Shannon, Seán Keane, Karan Casey and Sinéad Lohan. (Christy Moore remarked, ‘I sing John Spillane songs everywhere I go. John has been my favourite songwriter for the past ten years.’) John performed with several bands in his early music career, including The Stargazers, a jazz group, and the renowned trad group Nomos, with which he recorded two acclaimed albums and toured worldwide before leaving to pursue a solo career, beginning with the 1997 album The Wells of the World. He is a strong advocate of the Irish language and has released three albums in Irish, including the double platinum selling Irish Songs We Learned at School. Recently, he has worked with Music Generation to introduce, rehearse and perform songs from the album with students at a number of different schools.

Produced by Waltons New School of Music and generously supported by RTÉ lyric fm, the Waltons Music for Schools Competition is a non-profit annual national event celebrating and supporting music in Irish schools.

ALL NEWS