Ballinasloe's Grainne Madden, a member of the town band, has been selected as one of Ireland's six representatives in a band that will perform at the opening ceremony of the 28th Summer Olympic Games in Sydney on September 15th.
When she performs Grainne, who is the youngest of the six, will play music from various countries including South Africa, Denmark, Cuba and Australia. The other musicians are from Dublin and Cork and they will all depart for Sydney tomorrow. Approximately 2,000 musicians, divided into six groups, have been chosen. Grainne is a pupil of Scoil Mhuire secondary school in Ballinasloe, where her music teacher is Dundalk-born Ms Patricia Kilgallen. Grainne is a member of the Toyota-sponsored National Youth Orchestra and attends the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) in Dublin, where her professor is Mr Jimmy Kavanagh.
She has studied as far as Grade Eight on the trumpet and also plays the coonet and piano under the guidance of Co Galway-based Ivan Straker and Marie Power.