Paddy Kehoe spoke to Eamonn Lawlor, patron of the The Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year competition and presenter of the Lyric FM programmes which will once again broadcast performances this year.
“There is the sheer pleasure of sitting on stage - or sitting slightly off-stage - that close to someone playing Beethoven’s last piano sonata - that never wears off,“ says Eamonn Lawlor, referring to "the pleasure I’ve had over the last fifteen years or so of being that close to Irish music. “
He is including in the latter instance his broadcasting years with RTÉ lyric fm, along with his current duty – pleasure, more like – of hosting The Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year competition.
“It’s been a great privilege, particularly for someone who is not a musician to have worked on the fringes of Irish music and to have been tolerated even by people I admire as much as I do.”
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The Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year Competition is in its seventh year, with Queen’s University represented in this year’s competition for the first time. Queens joins the other Irish music colleges, namely DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama; DIT Conservatory of Music, Dundalk; The CIT Cork School of Music; Royal Irish Academy of Music; and The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick all of whom will send skilled representatives.
The competition came into being after The Young Irish Musician of the Future competition had ceased operations and Eamonn says he was aware of a gap at the time.
“A gap which the Freemasons saw and leapt into, and of course RTÉ Lyric FM were very happy to see it being done, very happy to do our bit.” Eamonn no longer works as a full-time presenter on the station, but he does return each year to host the broadcast performances.
This year’s Competition takes place at the Freemasons Hall, 17 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2, where tickets can be purchased now.
14 semi-finalists will perform on Thursday October 6 at 1.30pm and 7.00pm, while the organ semi-final performance will take place at St Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge at 11.15am. The Finals, featuring four finalists, will take place on Saturday, October 8 in the Freemasons Hall at 7.30pm. The winner is presented with an award of €5,000, and there are individual runner-up awards.
The Freemason tradition has a long association with music and composers such as Josef Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt and Arthur Sullivan. Leopold and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were both committed Freemasons.
“The Magic Flute is a great love song to Freemasonry, a great expression of the ideals of Freemasonry, " says Eamonn."As I understand it, they are the Enlightenment ideals of Brotherhood of man and all that can be achieved by humankind in acting in concert, with love, under the guidance of a Supreme being.“ The link continued throughout the twentieth century and In the jazz field, Count Basie, George Gershwin, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Irving Berlin were associated with Freemasonry.
Individual winners of The Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year competition have subsequently gone on to enjoy fulfilling, thriving careers in music. The semi-finalists and finalists can also expect kudos for their participation. “We hope for illustrious careers for all of them and the signs are very promising, “ says Eamonn.
