Joan Trimble

Joan Trimble (18 June 1915 – 6 August 2000) was an Irish composer and pianist from Ulster. She studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in London, and she and her sister performed for many years as a piano duo. In later years she inherited her father's newspaper, becoming its proprietor and editor.

Early life Joan Trimble was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (now Northern Ireland). Joan grew up in a musical household. Her mother was Marie Dowse, a solo violinist from a Dublin family of musicians, from which all eleven children had attended the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Joan attended Enniskillen Royal School for Girls and was the school's first Head Girl.

Joan studied composition with John F. Larchet and won a scholarship to the University of Dublin, from where she graduated with a BA degree in 1936. and studied piano with Annie Lord and music at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1936, BMus 1937). In 1936, the tenor John McCormack chose her to play piano solos during one of his tours.

In June 1942 in London, Joan Trimble married John Greenwood Gant, a Royal Army Medical Corps officer, Commissions for the BBC included Ulster Airs (1939–40) for the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra, and Erin Go Bragh, a march-rhapsody for brass band (1943). Her setting for voice and orchestra, How Dear to Me the Hour, won the Radio Éireann Centenary Prize in 1953.

In 1957, the BBC commissioned an opera from her, and she chose the 1924 Blind Raftery by Donn Byrne, the story of a wandering Irish bard set in the west of Ireland in the 17th century.

Between 1959 and 1977, Trimble was professor of accompaniment and musicianship at the Royal College of Music. Joan later composed works for two pianos which they performed together, including the Sonatina (1940). The sisters gave their first professional recital as a duo in the evening of September 28, 1938, at the Royal College of Music in London, as war was about to be declared with Germany. One of their audience said he had come to hear them "as it might be the last music he would ever hear." They performed three of Joan's new compositions, Buttermilk Point, The Bard Of Lisgoole and The Humours of Carrick, and the four-hand Jamaican Rumba, which had been composed for them by Arthur Benjamin for their debut performance.

Honours Trimble was honoured by the Royal College of Music in 1960 and by Queen's University Belfast in 1983. From 1981 to 1985 she was on the board of Ulster Television, and from 1983 to 1988 she was a member of the advisory committee of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. In 1985 she received the rarely-bestowed fellowship of the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

In 1990, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland commissioned Three Diversions for Wind Quintet from her for her 75th birthday. and the first recordings of her music appeared. She died in Enniskillen on 6 August 2000, at the age of 85,

Legacy In 2002, the Joan Trimble Awards Scheme was established by her family in her memory, and administered by the Fermanagh Trust "in recognition of her lifelong commitment to County Fermanagh". The purpose of the scheme was to encourage and support the involvement of young people in creativity, the performing arts and Irish culture, and to provide bursaries for training and education.

In 2012, Fermanagh County Museum staged an exhibition titled "Buttermilk Point: The Musical Life of Joan Trimble, 1915–2000".

Works

Opera Blind Raftery, television opera in two scenes (BBC, May 1957)

Orchestra 15 Ulster Airs (arrangements of trad. tunes, 1939–40) In Glenade for string orchestra (1942) Suite for Strings for string orchestra (1951)

Chamber Music The Coolin (Irish air) (1939) for cello & piano. London: Hawkes & Son, c.1939. Phantasy Trio (1940) for violin, cello, piano The Pool among the Rushes (1941) for clarinet & piano Erin go Bragh (1943) for brass band Introduction and Air (1969) for two harps. Cork: Mercier Press, 1969 (in The Irish Harp Book ed. by Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert). Three Diversions (1990) for wind quintet

Music for two pianos The Humours of Carrick (1938). London: Winthrop Rogers, c.1938. The Bard of Lisgoole (1938) Buttermilk Point (1938). London: Winthrop Rogers, c.1939. Sonatina (1940). London: Winthrop Rogers, 1941. The Green Bough (1941). London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1951. Pastorale (Hommage à F. Poulenc) (1943) The Gartan Mother's Lullaby (1949). London: Boosey & Co., 1949. The Heather Glen (1949). London: Boosey & Co., 1949. Puck Fair (1951)

Songs My Grief on the Sea (Douglas Hyde) (1937) Girl's Song (Wilfrid Wilson Gibson) (1937) Green Rain (Mary Webb) (1937). London: Winthrop Rogers, 1938. The County Mayo, song cycle (James Stephens) (1949)

Recordings Celtic Keyboards: Duets by Irish Composers, performed by Bruce Posner & Donald Garvelmann (pianos), on: Koch International Classics 3-7287-2 H1 (CD, 1994). Contains: Sonatina, The Gartan Mother's Lullaby, The Heather Glen, The Bard of Lisgoole, Buttermilk Point, The Green Bough, The Humours of Carrick. Silver Apples of the Moon – Irish Classical Music, performed by Irish Chamber Orchestra, Fionnuala Hunt (cond.), on: Black Box Music BBM 1003 (CD, 1997). Contains: Suite for Strings. Joan Trimble: Two Pianos – Songs and Chamber Music, performed by Patricia Bardon (mezzo), Joe Corbett (baritone), Una Hunt (piano), Roy Holmes (piano), Dublin Piano Trio, on: Marco Polo 8.225059 (CD, 1999). Contains: The Cows are a-milking, A Gartan Mother's Lullaby, The Heather Glen, My Grief on the Sea, Green Rain, Girl's Song, Sonatina, Pastorale (Hommage à F. Poulenc), Phantasy Trio, Puck Fair, The Green Bough, The County Mayo, Buttermilk Point, The Bard of Lisgoole, The Humours of Carrick. Phantasy Trio, performed by Fidelio Trio, on: RTÉ lyric fm CD 153 (CD, 2016). The Pool Among the Rushes, performed by John Finucane (clarinet) and Elisaveta Blumina (piano), on: Genuin GEN 18495 (CD, 2018). Green Rain; Girl's Song; My Grief on the Sea, performed by Carolyn Dobbin (mezzo) & Iain Burnside (piano), on: Delphian Records DCD 34187 (CD, 2018). Songs from the North of Ireland, Delphian DCD34329 (2024)