2025 Music for Schools Competition Finalists Concert Adjudicators
Waltons New School of Music
We are delighted to announce our 2024 Waltons RTÉ lyric fm Music for Schools Competition Finalists Concert Guest Adjudicators, Aedín Gormley and Lisa Hannigan!
The Finalists Concert will take place in the National Concert Hall on Monday, 24 March. See the Competition web page for more information about the Waltons RTÉ lyric fm Music for Schools Competition.
Aedín Gormley
Aedín has been working in radio for most of her life. She first worked in Irish language broadcasting and then at RTÉ Radio 1, initially as a member of the Presentation Department and then as presenter of The Weekend on One. Aedín joined RTÉ lyric fm when the station was founded in 1999, and Movies and Musicals, her hugely popular show, has been there from the start. The show features a broad range of soundtracks from early classics, as well as contemporary scores. Aedín has interviewed a number of renowned actors and performers for the show, including Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Mark Hamill, Colin Farrell, Colin Firth, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Blunt, Paul Mescal, Renée Zellweger and Elaine Stritch. She also loves talking to composers, and over the years she has chatted with John Barry, Lalo Schifrin, Hans Zimmer, Alan Menken, Michael Giacchino, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. During her time on RTE lyric fm, she has also presented the award-winning arts programmes Artszone, My Tunes and Sunday Matinée. And she now presents Aedín in the Afternoon on Fridays, featuring an eclectic range of music and entertainment news. She also loves collaborating with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, presenting concerts of film music and celebrating the world of musicals.
Lisa Hannigan
Lisa is a renowned singer/songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist. She began her music career in 2001 as a member of Damien Rice’s band, singing with Rice on his album 0 (2002) and later on his album 9 (2007), as well as playing guitar, bass and drums at different points. She also sang on Mic Christopher’s album Skylarkin’, which was released after his death and won Best Irish album at the Meteor Awards in 2003. In 2005, Lisa and Rice co-wrote ‘Unplayed Piano’, which was released to support the Free Aung San Suu Kyi 60th Birthday Campaign. In 2006, she featured as part of The Cake Sale, a collective of Irish and international artists formed by Brian Crosby of Bell X1. They released a self-titled album in Ireland to raise money for Oxfam and the Irish Make Trade Fair campaign, and it was so successful that it was given an international release the following year. In 2008, Lisa released her debut solo album, Sea Sew, which was nominated for both a Choice Award in Ireland and a Mercury Music Prize in the UK. In 2011, Lisa released her second album, Passenger and in 2016, her acclaimed third album, At Swim. In 2019, she collaborated with the contemporary classical orchestra stargaze (‘a musical match made in the heavens’, according to the Irish Times) and released Live in Dublin. The music was performed at the National Concert Hall and the Barbican Centre, as well as at several European festivals. Lisa continues a fruitful solo musical career that has spanned 18 years and received a number of award nominations, both in Ireland and the United States.
Download the Press Release
Aedín and Lisa will be joined as adjudicators by Aideen Walton, Co-Director of the Waltons RTÉ lyric fm Music for Schools Competition.
Produced by Waltons New School of Music and generously supported by RTÉ lyric fm, the Waltons RTÉ lyric fm Music for Schools Competition is a non-profit annual national event celebrating and supporting music in Irish schools.