Concert marks 10 years of making classical Coole

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Music and song will echo from all quarters of Gort Community Centre this Sunday afternoon October 11, as the Coole Music and Arts group marks its 10th anniversary.

Some 200 students and 14 teachers will perform at the event to celebrate the vibrant and successful group, which was the brainchild of German-born music teacher and local resident Katharina Baker.

From small beginnings, the group now has four orchestras, a choir and several chamber groups – its most senior orchestra has performed at the National Concert Hall on two occasions as well as at Kilkenny’s Castalia Hall, and played for Prince Charles when he visited Galway recently.

Coole Music and Arts also operates a student exchange programme with Sweden and Germany, it runs an annual Orchestra Festival, annual winter and summer concert seasons and a lot more.

Its choral group, the Coole Harmonies choir, regularly perform at the Cork International Choral Festival, while its teenage dancing orchestra Sonic Strings will travel to Paris this year – they have been busking regularly on Shop Street in Galway City in recent weeks to fundraise for this,

What makes the achievements of the Coole Music and Arts group so special is that classical music education was pretty scarce in South Galway a decade ago.

“We started with a vision and a dream and not much else,” recalls Katharina. “There has been a lot of blood, sweat, tears and work to get it to this level.”

The level she’s referring to involves an Orchestra Festival in Gort every March, at which thousands of young Irish musicians have performed since it was first held eight years ago.

The Coole Music and Arts Group didn’t get to this stage by accident. In addition to the teachers, there is an active voluntary parents’ group that works behind the scenes to keep everything running for this non-profit company.

“To keep it affordable for families and to be able to pay a dignified wage to teachers to keep the standards up is the constant challenge,” says Katharina. “It is a big commitment for families and we are aware of this,” she adds.

The Coole Music Group – as it was initially – was established after Katharina set up home in South Galway over a decade ago.

She came to Ireland from Stockholm, from where she had graduated with a Masters in Music Education – she had married a local man.

Initially Katharina worked as a teacher in two different music schools in Galway, but after being inundated with requests for lessons by local parents, she realised “there was a need and an interest in the local area for music”.

As if to confirm that realisation, just a few days after she settled in Ardrahan, Katharina was asked to get involved in setting up a choir.

Soon the demand for lessons in South Galway was so great that she could no longer meet it.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.