Sundays at Noon (Colman Pearce)

Dublin-born Colman Pearce is a pianist, conductor and composer. Educated at University College Dublin, he studied conducting in Hilversum and Vienna. He was principal conductor of the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra from 1981-83 and principal guest conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra from 1984-87. From 1987 to 1999 he was principal conductor and music director of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and, in his final year, was the recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in the State of Mississippi. He was also made a Freeman of the City of New Orleans. Colman Pearce is Principal Guest Conductor of the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted more than 20 concerts during its inaugural tour of the United States in 2009.

As a conductor, Colman Pearce’s repertoire embraces not only the main works in the symphonic field but also opera and oratorio. He has directed the first performances of many contemporary Irish works and, with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, has recorded CDs of music by Stanford, Victory, Boydell,
Buckley, Corcoran, Deane, Bodley and Wilson on the Naxos/Marco Polo label.

As a composer, his song cycle Summerfest was commissioned by RTÉ and premiered in 1993 with the composer as pianist. His work, Robinson the Cat, was
premiered in 1998 and a recent composition, Anagram, for chamber ensemble, was given its first performance in April 2000 in Pittsburgh. For ROS Production (USA), he has recorded The Memory is a Living Thing, a CD including some of his own music. A recording of two one-act operas by Leonardo Balada was released in the United States in 2002.