Fiona Linnane is a composer based in the West of Ireland. She is director of Limerick New Music Ensemble and represented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin. Linnane’s current compositional practice centres around use of text and includes opera, art song and featuring spoken word.
Recent projects include: Banned – an opera exploring the censorship of Irish writer Kate O’Brien in the mid 20th century (Opera Workshop, funded by Arts Council of Ireland Opera Projects Strand 1); Cogarnach – A Building as Witness project at Crawford Art Gallery Cork with soprano Triona Walsh and the Youth ensembles of the Cork ETB School of Music; Mrs Cousins (née Gillespie) – Commissioned by Roscommon County Council for the King House Piano Commission 2023 and Would Be Poetess – Commissioned by violinist Larissa O’Grady funded by ACI Commissions Award. She was awarded Arts Council of Ireland Bursaries in 2020 and 2022 and an Agility Award in 2021.
In 2021 Linnane was commissioned to compose the opera No.2 Pery Square — a site responsive work devised in collaboration with, and commissioned by, the Limerick-based opera production company Opera Workshop (ACI Opera Commissions 2020). In 2024 she was commissioned by Opera Workshop again, to research an opera exploring the censorship of Irish writer Kate O’Brien with the working title of Banned (ACI Opera Projects Strand 1 2023). The work of Kate O’Brien has been a feature of Linnane’s work since 2011 when she began composing her song cycle Songs from Kate O’Brien. The cycle consists of 12 songs – four for soprano, four for contralto and four for baritone – based on poems by Mary Coll depicting characters from O’Brien’s novels at pivotal moments in their development. The Limerick City and County Council awarded her with Individual Arts Bursaries in 2018 and 2019 for work in opera and art song, including the addition of the four songs for soprano to the Kate O’Brien cycle.
Work for choir includes Bog Wish and Peat based on poems by Eileen Casey (2022); Clean Air – a setting of a speech by young climate activist Saoirse Exton (supported by an Arts Council of Ireland Music Bursary in 2022) and Flutter fossil fox – a collection of 2 part choral works for children’s choir (2013) published by Cailino Publishers.
In 2023 Linnane was awarded a Building as Witness Project award by Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Working with soprano Tríona Walsh and the youth ensembles of the Cork ETB School of Music, she produced Cogarnach – a collaborative musical work responding to Crawford Art Gallery’s building, its architecture, and its history.
In 2022 Linnane worked with Limerick Bat Group on an Arts Council of Ireland Artist in the Community R&D Project, culminating in an event at Curraghchase Forest Park, County Limerick celebrating the bat population residing there. Leatherwing – a work for harpsichord and tape – was one of the resulting works from this project which was recorded by harpsichordist Yonit Kosovske and released on the Now and Then Media label in 2023.
In 2023 she was awarded an Individual Arts Bursary by Limerick City and County Council for a retrospective of her practice creating a comprehensive catalogue of work dating back to 2003.
Linnane is widely sought after for her work in arts in education and the community. Her work has twice been a recipient of the Arts in Education Documentation Award, and she has undertaken training at a European level through participation in the International Teacher Artist Partnership Professional Development (I-TAP-PD). She is a member of the Design team for the Teacher Artist Partnership programme (Department of Education), is on the panel of Heritage Experts for the Heritage Council’s Heritage in Schools Scheme and is a Creative Associate with the Creative Schools programme (Arts Council of Ireland).
