Eric Sweeney and Edward Denniston announced as Composer and Poet-in-Residence with Waterford Healing Arts Trust

Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) has announced that Eric Sweeney and Edward Denniston have been selected as Composer and Poet-in-Residence, respectively, at University Hospital Waterford (UHW). This is the first time WHAT has brought together two art forms under its Artist-in-Residence programme. 

The aim of this exciting new approach is for both artists, working together, to collaborate with patients at UHW, and to create new work – including a new choral work – inspired by these experiences. This choral piece will be part of the permanent legacy of the organisation’s 25th anniversary and will be performed in December by Madrigallery, the acclaimed Waterford-based chamber choir, under their director Dr Kevin O’Carroll. The Artist-in-Residence scheme is funded by the Arts Council.

Eric Sweeney, a Dubliner by birth, has lived in Waterford since 1981. Head of Music at Waterford Institute of Technology until he retired in 2010, Eric previously lectured in music at the Dublin College of Music (now Dublin Institute of Technology) and at Trinity College, and was Choral Director at RTÉ from 1978-1981. A frequent visitor to North America, he has been Composer-in-Residence at the Newport Festival Rhode Island, Memorial University, Newfoundland, the University of Illinois, Indiana State University and the University of Portland, Oregon, among others.  He is a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists.

Edward Denniston has lived in Waterford since 1980. He retired from teaching English and Drama in 2014. His publications include The Point of Singing (Abbey Press, 1999); Interacting – 60 Drama Scripts (Russell House UK, 2007); Eskimo Advice – an ebook of poems (Rectory & Hayrake Press, 2007); The Scale of Things (Salmon Poetry, 2013) and For Crying Out Loud (Salmon Poetry, 2017). He has published in various journals and some of his poems have been translated into French. His collaboration with photographer Abigail Denniston, Word To Image, was published in 2014.

Further details are available from www.waterfordhealingarts.com or (051) 842664.