TRADE / Mary Motorhead: For Your GRAMMY® Consideration
Friday, 26 September, 2025
Emma O’Halloran and Mark O’Halloran’s opera double bill TRADE/ Mary Motorhead presented for consideration in the Best Opera Recording category of this year’s GRAMMY Awards®.
“★★★★★ – a triumph of bracingly authentic kitchen-sink operatic storytelling.” - BBC Music Magazine
Both operas delve into the complexities of modern life, featuring characters in unexpected situations, reacting to the twists and turns that life has thrown at them. Mark O’Halloran’s texts cut straight to the raw emotional core of each character, while Emma O’Halloran’s score combines beauty and drama in the vocal lines with echoes of 80’s gritty electronic music layered over the orchestral accompaniment, creating a new and unique soundscape.
In the monodrama Mary Motorhead Naomi Louisa O’Connell sings the title role. In prison after stabbing her husband in the head, Mary Motorhead reflects on the events that brought their turbulent rural marriage to such a crisis, while he lies in intensive care.
Set in a guesthouse in Dublin’s north inner city, TRADE features a vulnerable young rent boy sung by tenor Oisín Ó Dálaigh sitting with a middle-aged client performed by bass John Molloy. The older man has blood on his shirt. A lot has happened since the two last met.
Featuring the Irish National Opera Orchestra conducted by Elaine Kelly.
Available on the Signum Records label.
A co-production with Beth Morrison Projects.
Recorded at The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny, in August 2024.
Audio Producers: Emma O’Halloran, Alex Dowling
Assistant Audio Producer: Caterina Schembri
Creative Producers: Fergus Sheil (Irish National Opera), Beth Morrison (Beth Morrison Projects)
Recording Engineer: Simon Cullen
Audio Mix Engineer: Edu Prado
Mastering Engineer: Seán MacErlaine
