Michael Doherty [b.1983]
String Quartet No.3 [2023]

commissioned by the Gealán Quartet

Performed by the Gealán Quartet
MTU Cork School of Music 9th November 2023

Score and parts available from the composer at michaeldohertymusic@gmail.com

String Quartet No.3 was commissioned by the Gealán String Quartet and written in the early part of 2023. Its three movements explore, in very different ways, the themes of convergence and divergence. The first movement does so through colour and the second through rhythm. The third movement does so more literally, echoing two folksongs whose texts speak of separation and reunion. Michael Doherty

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A first class honours graduate of the RNCM, Michael Doherty’s first post was as an assistant composer to the Oscar-winning Gabriel Yared in 2008. From there, he has built a reputation as a composer and orchestrator for films, documentaries and video games, writing for, among other clients, the BBC, Universal, Channel 4, and Warner Bros. . In recent years he has orchestrated for an Oscar-nominated film (Björn Runge’s The Wife, 2017) and he orchestrates regularly for other composers and bands, including the Ivor Novello-winning Ian Livingstone and Bafta-winning Jocelyn Pook.

Michael continues to write for the concert hall too, and recent commissions have seen his work premiered internationally in St. Martin In The Fields, the Concertgebouw and the Mozarteum. He maintains close ties with the music industry in Spain and his 2021 piece, Concertino On Albanian Themes, was recently recorded on the Phonoclassical label by Albanian virtuoso Smerald Spahia and Academia 1830 in Mallorca. Upcoming commissions include collaborations with world-renowned guitarist Laura Young, pianist Artur Pereira, and the Orquestra Simfònica De Les Illes Balears.