ELAINE AGNEW is a rising composer living in Ireland. She received a BBC Proms commission for double orchestra and solo flute for the premiere of Dark Hedges by the Ulster Youth Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, Sir James Galway and conductor JoAnn Falletta at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in 2012. It was a huge success, one reviewer describing it as “compelling from beginning to end.”

The Irish Chamber Orchestra opened their concert at the Konzerthaus in Berlin in January 2013 with her Strings A-Stray to celebrate the German launch of Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union.  Dublin dancer Fiona Quilligan choreographed two of her pieces, Seagull and Statues, in her new show Pas De Chat at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.
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Elaine’s many works have been performed, commissioned and broadcast worldwide by artists such as Sir James Galway, the Vogler Quartet, the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, Lontano, cellists Robert Cohen and Evžen Rattay, the European Union Chamber and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, Chamber Choir Ireland, the Kaunas Chamber Choir, violinists Isabelle Faust and Catherine Leonard, pianists Angela Hewitt and Romain Descharmes and conductors Kenneth Montgomery and Jane Glover.

Track of the Month for SPRING  — You are listening to:

"Regreen" by Elaine Agnew

​Performed by the Boston Children's Chorus and recorded at its premiere in Prague. "Regreen" is a setting of the TMF LiberArte poem ​by Irish poet Justin Quinn, chosen in this spring month for its themes of nature and renewal, longing and liberation. 

The premiere at Prague's Spanish Synagogue. Photo by Michael J. Lutch.

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REGREEN
Poem by Justin Quinn

Green comes even so
from cracked concrete, bare
black branches. The doe
rocks to the roe-deer.
Pollen everywhere,
on me, even here,
 
as I walk past the fields, along the road.
 
Summer’s coming in,
is the track I sing.
Inside a dark inn
the girl who brings my beer
has lots of the spring
in her, oh, even here.
 
Then I walk towards the fields, along the road.
 
There are people packed
like leaves through the ground
in each plot and tract,
dozing, year on year,
tossing and turning round
gently — even here
 
where I walk past the fields, along the road.
 
These ones sing their airs
from lodgings in the earth,
asking me, who cares,
and who’d like to hear
what they’ve left of mirth
even now and here,
 
when I walk past the fields, along the road.
 
I will rot like wood
no matter how I flee.
Still, the day is good.
Old songs learnt by ear
make free, oh, make free
with me — even here
 
as I walk past the fields, along the road.

Listen here to more music in our Track of the Month Series.