Other Voices takes centre stage at UCC

UCC’s riverside campus played host to a number of musical events this week as part of the Other Voices: Bringing it All Back Home Festival at the college.

Other Voices’ founder and UCC graduate Philip King brought his successful musical project back to his old haunt to pay homage to his academic education.

“My own musical expedition began at UCC and was informed in every way by the music that I heard, the people I met, and the wonderful experience I had as a student in the university. It is the realisation of a long-held ambition to bring Other Voices back home to the beautiful campus of the university and to Cork city.”

Hosted by legendary Other Voices presenter MayKay, the line-up included Mercury Prize nominee SOAK, Cork-born, London-based rising star Cian Ducrot, a solo set from the magnificent Susan O’Neill, as well as an exclusive performance from critically acclaimed Cork-born experimental artist Biig Piig.

Speaking in UCC’s Aula Maxima, UCC president Professor John O’Halloran reiterated the university’s dedication to championing arts and culture.

“We’re confronted by major crises at the moment, whether it is climate change, whether it is geopolitical issues, and we in UCC believe we can achieve, through education, three things: that we can speak to the head, through generating knowledge, we can use our hands in construction, in doing good things, but we can also speak to the heart and if we want to solve them the world’s problems we’ve got to be able to speak with empathy to the heart.

“Whether that’s through poetry, song, music, dance, or literature, that’s what we’re trying to do here. It is to educate people in the broader sense, what we call life-wide learning.”