ABBA

French horn player who started out on the piano at four years of age and begain playing the trumpet when he was seven. When he was fourteen years old, he was asked by his teacher to choose between the trumpet and horn and he opted for the latter.

Groups with whom he has worked include the BBC Philharmonic, the Dublin Orchestral Players, the London Horn Sound, the Mike Gibbs Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the RTE Concert Orchestra, the RTE National Symphony Orchestar, and vox merus.

In 1993, he appeared on the CDs, By the Way by the Mike Gibbs Orchestra, and The London Horn Sound.

Cormac and his peers, Tony Catterick, Shane O’Neill and Richard Wainwright, teamed up with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra in February 1996 for a performance of Anton Bruckner’s “Symphony No. 7”.

On 13^th August 1996, the Philharmonia were joined by soloist Barry Tuckwell in concert at Royal Albert Hall. The program comprised “Horn Concerto No. 3” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, “Horn Concerto, Op. 28” by Oliver Knussen, “Nocturnes” by Claude Debussy, “Symphony No. 7” by Jean Sibelius, and “Symphony of Wind Instruments”.

Cormac appeared on John Buckley’s In Lines of Dazzling Light in 2000 and MeeK’s Margaret et se bijoux in 2004.

On 4^th May 2004, he and Jeffrey Agrell accompanied Kantorei in a rendering of Romanus Pinzger’s Missa 2 at the University of Iowa.

He, along with Nigel Black and Laurence Davies, were the featured horn players when the Philharmonia offered up the “Concerto for Horn and Orchestra” by Stewart Green, excerpts from Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck and “Festmusik der Stadt Wien” by Richard Strauss at Queen Elizabeth Hall on 27^th June 2006.

In July 2006, the same triad were joined by James Handy as the Philharmonia celebrated Robert Schumann’s 200^th anniversary in a tripleheader of “Introduction & Allegro Appassionato”, with conductor Andras Schiff at the keys, “Konzertstuck for Four Horns”, and “Symphony No. 4”.

Cormac participated in BBC Proms on 28^th July 2007 at Royal Albert Hall in London. The broadcast, with featured musicians from the Band of the Coldstream Guards, the BBC Philharmonic, the Royal College of Music, and Salford University, included “Aerial” by HK Gruber, “He is armoured without” by Peter Wiegold, “Sinfonietta” by Leos Janacek, and “Ziggurat” by Judith Bingham.

Another BBC Proms concert from 2007 featured him with fellow horn players Martin Owen, David Pyatt and Michael Thompson in a performance of the aforementioned “Konzertstuck” with Sir Charles Mackerras and the BBC Philharmonic.

Around the same time, the London Horn Sound were busy working on the sequel to their eponymous debut entitled Give it One.

On 7^th June 2008, Cormac, Angela Barnes, Michael Thompson and Richard Watkins shared the stage with Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, England.

He also appeared on the BBC Philharmonic’s recording of Schumann’s “Konzertstuck for Four Horns” and “Symphony No. 4” in 2009.

On 27^th November 2010, he was a guest soloist with the Dublin Orchestral Players at the King’s Inns on Constitution Hill as they interpreted the overture from Der Freischutz by Carl Maria von Weber, “Horn Concerto No. 1” by Richard Strauss, and “Symphony No. 3” (“Eroica”) by Ludwig van Beethoven.

He joined them again on for a classical music concert at the Parish of St. Jude the Apostle on 4^th December 2010.

On 11^th June 2011, the Iveagh Singers and vox merus teamed up for a recital at Wesley House in Leeson Park to benefit the Methodist Centenary Church.

vox merus gave “An Introduction to Brass” that included “Five Blows for Brass Quintet” by Brian Boydell, “Five Run Away Together” by Daniel Barkley and brass quintets by Malcolm Arnold and Joseph Groocock at Hugh Lane on 9^th October 2011.

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