SJP BLOG

Young Irish Jazz Musician Bursary Award comes back to Sligo

17-year-old Sligo pianist Rory Connealy was awarded the title of Young Irish Jazz Musician 2024 by Riverdance composer Bill Whelan in University Concert Hall Limerick on 17th November 2024, after a fabulous award-winning performance which included one of his own compositions. Rory was the last of five contestants to perform in the fabulous UCH auditorium. The Young Irish Jazz Musician award is a biennial initiative of Limerick Jazz Society and is the very first All-Ireland jazz competition, founded in 2022, with this year’s finalists coming from all over Ireland, north and south.
Rory, a leaving certificate student at Sligo Grammar School, is a member of the Sligo Academy of Music Jazz Orchestra and performs regularly with his own Sligo based Honey Trio. He has been a participant at the last 3 Sligo Jazz Project international summer school events where he studied under international educators like Elio Villafranca, Liam Noble and Scott Flanigan as well as throughout the year under local educators Niamh Crowley, Kieran Quinn and others.
Sligo Jazz Project artistic director Eddie Lee was at the ceremony in Limerick and was quick to point out “those of us who have watched Rory’s extraordinary musical progress over the past few years are not at all surprised of this achievement, as he is the perfect mixture of an extraordinary musical talent and a very hard working young man. It’s quite remarkable and a testament to the work we do at Sligo Jazz Project and all the great teachers and mentors we have in Sligo, that the first two winners of this competition are both Sligo pianists”.
Eddie refers to the fact that the Young Irish Jazz Musician mantle is being passed on to Rory by the previous inaugural winner of the 2022 title of this biennial Young Irish Jazz musician award, another Sligo pianist, Nils Kavanagh.
Nils, who recorded his forthcoming album in University of Limerick Concert Hall as a result of the recording bursary he received as part of the 2022 prize, performed a very well received set as the special guest the night, when the splendid news was also revealed that Nils, now in his 4th year in Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, had been announced as one of the 4 finalists in the BBC Young Jazz Musician 2024 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, capping off what has truly been a great year for these young Sligo musicians.