ABOUT US
The Ensemble
Aisling Agnew is a flautist from Belfast. She has performed internationally including prominent festivals such as Musicahora in Chile, National Flute Association’s 40th Convention at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Jeonju International Sori Festival in Korea, Sarajevo Winter Festival and also closer to home at New Music Dublin, the British Flute Convention in Manchester, Celtic Connections in Glasgow, and the Belfast International Festival. Aisling is host of the popular podcast The Flute NI and she has made many successful recordings, many of which have been broadcast on BBC Radio, RTE Lyric FM and Classic FM. Aisling is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is the recipient of many awards including the Countess of Munster, Arts Council of NI, Creative Scotland and Belfast Classical Music Bursaries. Aisling’s involvement in Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble reflects her continued passion for new music and working with composers. She has premiered and recorded many contemporary works for flute and highlights include performing for Sir Peter Maxwell Davies 80th birthday concert and giving the first performance in Scotland of Penderecki’s Flute Concerto. Aisling regularly performs with various orchestras in the UK and Ireland, she is a founding member of the Irish Memory Orchestra and also performs in Clyde Duo with Welsh Harpist Sharron Griffiths. Concerto performances include with Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra and Camerata Ireland.
Daniel Browell enjoys a busy and varied performing career, having given recitals in the UK, Europe, China and North America. His debut recital at London’s Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre and concerto performance at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall received critical acclaim in the national press. Daniel particularly enjoys collaborative projects with instrumentalists and singers in addition to his work with the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble; he has performed with YCAT winner Kathryn Rudge at the Wigmore Hall and on many occasions since, and he has worked with the BBC Philharmonic on numerous occasions, including performing in the orchestra’s chamber music series in Salford. Other recent engagements have included projects with the Ulster Orchestra and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. After studying for his undergraduate degree at the University of Birmingham, Daniel went on to study in Paris, London (Royal Academy of Music) and Chicago. Whilst then going on to become a Junior Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music, he won numerous prizes and awards. Daniel is in great demand as a teacher; he has given masterclasses and has taught in China, Europe, the Middle East and America, and is highly regarded as an adjudicator. He was appointed Associate Head of Keyboard at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2014 and is currently a member of the jury and organising committee of the Dudley International Piano Competition.
David McCann was born in Belfast and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. He has worked with many of the U.K. and Ireland’s leading orchestras, including the Hallé Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and Ireland’s National Symphony Orchestra. David enjoys a busy and diverse performing career, appearing frequently as a soloist and chamber musician in addition to his orchestral work. Highlights of 2024 include performances with Cello Ireland as part of the Cellissimo festival in Galway, solo and duo performances at the inaugural TERRAIN festival of contemporary music in Belfast, a solo performance at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and collaborations with a number of local artists, including singer-songwriter Duke Special and guitarist Colin Reid. David is passionate about contemporary music and has given premiere performances of dozens of new works for cello. He is also active as a composer; in 2017 he was commissioned by HRSE to compose Three Caprices for solo cello. His Six Pieces for solo flute and Suite for solo cello received first performances in 2019, and his Reflexion for solo cello was premiered in 2022.
Ciaran McCabe enjoys a varied musical life as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. Recent solo engagements include the concerti of Bruch, Dvorak, Mendelssohn and Barber with ensembles such as the Ulster Orchestra and Orpheus Sinfonia and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London with the Brandenburg Sinfonia. He was a recipient of the Milton Violin Award and the Young Artists’ Platform Award from the Arts Council NI, which included a BBC studio recording of virtuoso Violin works. He was a founding member of the Cavaleri Quartet, with whom he performed in major venues such as the Musikverein, Vienna, Rachmaninov Hall, Moscow, Auditorio Nacional, Madrid, Wigmore Hall, London and throughout New Zealand and Australia. Ciaran has appeared as guest leader of the Ulster Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, the Symphony Orchestra of India, English Touring Opera and Brandenburg Sinfonia. He is also a member of the London Chamber Orchestra and has performed with a variety of chamber ensembles such as the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, English Chamber Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Aurora, and Camerata Nordica. Ciaran studied with Yossi Zivoni at the Royal College of Music, London as a Yehudi Menuhin Scholar and later in the chamber music class of Günter Pichler in Madrid. He plays a 1689 Cremonese Violin by Andrea Guarneri, on generous long-term loan from a private trust.
Ioana Petcu Colan is currently Leader of the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, alongside which she continues to enjoy a rich and diverse freelance life. On both modern and baroque violin, Ioana has performed a considerable number of solo works with orchestra including many of the great concertos, as well as shorter works and more contemporary offerings from composers such as Philip Glass, John Tavener and Arvo Pärt. Ioana’s recording of the Bruch Violin Concerto with the RTÉCO continues to get regular airplay on Lyric FM and her performance of Ian Wilson’s third violin concerto ‘Sullen Earth’ with the Ulster Orchestra was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Ioana has also toured internationally, recorded, broadcast and coached in her various roles as first violin; as former founder member of the prize-winning Callino Quartet, with piano trio Ensemble Avalon and with South American folk band LunfardÃa. Chamber collaborations have been with artists as diverse as Barry Douglas (piano), John Abercrombie (jazz guitarist), Martin Hayes (trad fiddle) and Arcade Fire (indie rock) and as a member of an all-female violin quartet joining the then leaders of RTÉ National Symphony, RTÉ Concert and the Irish Chamber Orchestras on tour.
Sarah Watts studied clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music, and then solo bass clarinet at the Rotterdam Conservatorium. Sarah was awarded the Exxon prize for the best classical music student in Rotterdam and made an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2016. Sarah has achieved an international reputation for her solo bass clarinet playing and has attracted composers such as Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Piers Hellawell and George Nicholson to write music for her. She has released numerous solo and chamber CDs playing on clarinet, basset horn, bass and contrabass clarinet. Sarah is Director of Music Performance at the University of Sheffield and has given masterclasses and workshops in many leading UK conservatoires and universities. She also runs an international solo bass clarinet course on the Isle of Raasay in Scotland and other courses for amateur musicians. Sarah performs extensively with SCAW (bass clarinet and piano duo) and rarescale (low flutes and clarinets). She has completed a PHD exploring bass clarinet multiphonics and published a book on the subject. Sarah is an Henri Selmer Paris artist, Vandoren Artist, and a Silverstein pro artist.
Paul McCusker completed his PhD in molecular parasitology in 2014 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Biological Sciences at QUB before leaving in 2017 to study conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with Garry Walker and Alasdair Mitchell. There, he won the Hugh S Roberton prize for orchestral conducting, participated in a workshop with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted the Red Note Ensemble in concert. In 2018 he won the panel and orchestra prizes at the Feis Ceoil Conducting Competition with the RTE Concert Orchestra, which led to a concert performance with the orchestra. Paul has subsequently conducted the Ulster Orchestra, Ulster Youth Orchestra and Esker Festival Orchestra as well as founding/directing Laganside Sinfonia, a Belfast based charity orchestra that has raised around £20,000 for local charities since its establishment. While working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, USA (2018 – 2020), he established an orchestra before returning to Belfast in 2020.
Our Story
“A ground-breaking and dynamic ensemble” Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble is Northern Ireland’s cutting-edge contemporary music group. Well-known for their daring approach to programming and immersive performances, Hard Rain features a world-class group of unique musicians specialising in modern music.
Hard Rain have performed at major festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Warsaw Autumn, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Musicahora Festival in Chile, and Classical:NEXT in Berlin as well as closer to home at New Music Biennial (Southbank Centre, London), New Music Dublin, Sonorities, Sound of Belfast, Walled City Music and Belfast International Arts Festival.
Hard Rain was founded by composer Greg Caffrey in 2013. They have given multiple premieres and through extensive commissioning (around 100 works to date), have developed a dedicated following for new music in their home city of Belfast, a UNESCO City of Music. They feature on several successful recordings, including Up By the Roots (Delphian), The Tyndall Effect (Métier), GLOW (NMC), and their debut double CD A Terrible Beauty (Diatribe). A former Guardian pick of the week with works by eleven Irish composers, it is “...an extraordinary demonstration of the sheer range of colour it is possible to extract from this type of ensemble...” (The Journal of Music)
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Hard Rain are passionate about bringing innovative new music to wider audiences and are renowned for their diverse specialism. From multimedia to minimalism, spectral to serialism, new complexity to improvisation, cross-genre and cross-artform projects including film, dance, visual arts, science and literature… no two projects are ever the same.
Hard Rain collaborates with multiple artists and composers from across the musical spectrum. They work extensively with emerging professionals and as Ensemble-in-Residence at Queen’s University Belfast, have developed creative connections with staff and students across the university. Other outreach and educational initiatives include Cityside Sessions (an inner-city residency), Dialogues (NI Film Scoring School with Dumbworld), Inclusive Creativity (using new technology to connect disabled and non-disabled musicians), Conducting (with International Conducting Academy), Youth Opera (performances and workshops with Ulster Touring Opera) and ongoing partnerships with Ulster Youth Orchestra and Ulster Youth Jazz Orchestra.
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"Every once in a while, a group of likeminded artists come together and shake things up. They become the catalyst of something special, pushing the boundaries of creativity and taking their chosen art form to new places and new heights. The only contemporary classical music repertoire ensemble in Northern Ireland, Hard Rain’s championing of innovative New Music is acknowledged as pioneering on these islands … They have built new audiences for the music, performing works that we would not otherwise have the opportunity to experience live, and all to the highest possible standards. In doing so, they have reconnected Northern Ireland’s music making with the best of modern classical music from elsewhere in the world….”
Ciaran Scullion, Head of Music and Opera at Arts Council N.Ireland
Hard Rain are proud to support a wide range of Northern Irish creatives, composers, performers and sound artists, and remain passionate about developing the creative industry at home.
"It was expressive and accessible and came across beautifully as interpreted by the musicians... I found it wonderfully entrancing"
Opera Journal, Sonorities Festival Belfast
"This was about as good as it gets"
Journal of Music, New Music Dublin
“This was an intriguing recital featuring extraordinary virtuoso playing from the members of the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble.”
Robert Beattie, Seen and Heard International
Guest Artists
Conductors
Benjamin Haemhouts, Sinead Hayes, Paul Hoskins, Brian Irvine, Lilianna Krych, Matthew Lynch, Jonathan Mann, Matthew Quinn, Luka Venter
Instrumentalists
Richard Allen, Lina Andonovska, Cristo Barrios, Alexander Bernstein, Sasha Buettner, Ben Burnley, Yseult Cooper-Stockdale, William Curran, Stephen Davis, Andrew Douglas, Madeleine Easton, Zuzanna Edmonds, Scott Foster, Ben Gannon, Caimin Gilmore, Susie Griffin, Clare Hadwen, Rohan Harron, Feargus Hetherington, Thomas Jackson, Lidia Jewloszewicz-Clarke, Gongbo Jiang, Samuel Kane, Chris Kelly, Garth Knox, Aoife Magee, Keith McAlister, Ciaran McCabe, Roger McCann, Ronan McKee, Ciaran McQuaid, Darragh Morgan, Xenia Pestova Bennett, Alex Petcu, Marta Piórkowska, Eva Richards, Nicholas Rippon, Elias Rooney, Tristan Russcher, Fie Schouten, Laura Sinnerton, Sam Staunton, Claire Sterling, Jennifer Sturgeon, Grace Sun Park,Michael Trainor
Singers
Jenny Bourke, Rebekah Coffey, Malachy Frame, Elizabeth Hilliard, Aoife Miskelly, Rebecca Murphy, Rory Musgrave, Sarah Richmond, Lucy Schaufer
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