Sunday, May 25, 2008

Scoil Mhuire News

Scoil Mhuire was delighted to hear the good news that two sixth class pupils, Olivia O'Neill-Brown and Katherine Murphy were both awarded scholarships to Newbridge College following a recent examination. The college awards 4 scholarships annually so it was a major achievement for 2 pupils from the same class in Ballymore to win half the scholarships. Their teacher Ms. Brown was delighted and we wish the girls every success in the future.
Last week was a very busy week in school with many activities organised for "Seachtain na Gaeilge" including stort-telling as Gaeilge organised by 6th class for the infants in the library; "Tr th na gCeist" as Gaeilge for classes from 2nd to 6th and "Cainteoir na Seachtaine" which is a weekly award given to the pupil who makes the best effort at using Gaeilge during the school week. The overall aim is to make Irish a living language and put more emphasis on spoken Irish without worrying about making mistakes. Questionnaires filled by parents regarding pupils homework in Irish have been a great help and the pupils are now deriving great enjoyment from their daily use of the living language. There were many prizewinners during the week but the overall prize went to Laura Darby who won a specially signed Sydney Swans jersey signed for Scoil Mhuire by their star player Tadhg Kennelly.
During awards day on Friday last the winners of the recent school handwriting competition were announced. These results were awaited with the anticipation of the Oscars! Special guest star Liam Lawler did the honours by calling in to present the medals.All the winning entries are on display in the hall for everyone to admire. While technology is all around us the importance of the art and skill of good handwriting cannot be over stressed. Winners who received gold, silver and bronze medals were:
Oisin Breslin,Caitl n Barrett, Abby Sammon, Paul Winders, Billy Fennan, Dean Doyle, Jamie Mahon, Zara McMullan, Hannah Doyle, Kaja Natanek, Savannagh Fisher, Aaron Deegan, Lee McMullan, Mayah Sammon,Wiktoria Natanek, Enda Stewart-Byrne, Jason Gorman,Natasha Murphy,Tadhg Dooley,Aoife Luccan,Lauryn McNamara, Heather Sammon, Yasmine Winders, Kate Curley, Conor Darker, Adam Keogh, Emily Mahon.


Local piano virtuoso wows National Concert Hall.

Well you just never know do you, what local talent is lying hidden there and waiting for the right moment to erupt to the surface. So it was on Tues. 26th February last, on no less a stage than the National Concert Hall in Dublin, when young local pianist Derek Moylan appeared as piano soloist with the DIT Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Brophy, in George Gershwin’s jazz-inspired masterpiece “Rhapsody in Blue”. This was the centrepiece of the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama’s concert, themed “A Night of American Music”, which also included a selection of American film music and excerpts from “Porgy and Bess” and “West Side Story”. Centrepiece and indeed highlight it proved to be, with Derek coolly delivering a dazzling performance of this tricky 15 minute work that was rapturously received by the sell-out audience (and not just the 15 or so local “groupies”, bussed in by Donnelly Coaches, who attended!).

After his performance Derek, who is a son of Carmel and Larry of Luggadowden, calmly declared that he had really enjoyed himself but “would have preferred to have been a little bit more nervous”. Well we can assure him that, judging by the various brows being mopped and jagged fingernails being filed back into some sort of decent order, the “groupies” were sufficiently nervous on his behalf! Incredibly, Derek who is twenty two and a fourth-year full-time B.Mus. student at DIT, only took up piano at fourteen (like tennis stars pianists usually start at about three!), his earlier musical interest mainly being rock guitar. Along the way he has won the Petrof Cup for his Bach playing, the Heneghan Trophy for concerto playing and he was recently concert soloist in a movement from Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. During this time he has also sung in college productions and studied the harpsichord whilst in his spare time writing for, and playing in an alternative rock band called “Lines Drawing Circles”. Did somebody just say spare time?

With such an array of achievements piled high in his wake, you would be fairly excused for assuming that this has surely got to be one totally insufferable little brat. Well surprisingly no actually, in fact he happens to be a disarmingly unassuming and immensely likeable young man who “just wants to make a career as a concert pianist”. Our advice? Beat the rush; book Carnegie Hall now!
Bill Delaney

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