Killeigh singer has tune included in film soundtrack

A young singer songwriter from Killeigh has had a song included on the soundtrack of one of the most acclaimed Irish films in years.

A Date for Mad Mary, which won the Best Irish Film Award at the recent Galway Film Festival, is a coming of age story that has earned universal praise from critics at home and abroad. Directed by Darren Thornton, the film goes on general release this Friday.

One person, who “can’t wait to see it”, is Killeigh’s Hazel Ward, whose song Love Rush, features on its soundtrack.

Described by its creator as “electronic pop”, Love Rush may be Hazel’s first foray into the world of film, but she has previously had a song featured on TV3's Apprentice, while another self-pened ditty, Habit, was Tom Dunne’s demo of the day track on his Newstalk Show a couple of years ago.

Speaking to the Offaly Independent, Hazel said that composing music for film soundtracks is something that she would like to explore in the years to come.

Hazel graduated from the Brighton and Bristol Institute of Modern Music’s first Dublin degree course last year. Joking that if studying the ins and outs of the music industry doesn’t put her off performing nothing will, Hazel’s versatility as a performer and songwriter is something that should mark her out from her contemporaries.

In addition to her work as a solo artist specialising in electronic music, she is also a member of the Music Academy in Tullamore and recently performed with her colleagues at a choral competition in Germany. If that wasn’t enough, she recently wrote a song for her friend, country music singer Carrie Haskins.

Noting that “lyrics are lyrics” and “feelings are feelings”, Hazel says that she loves moving from genre to genre.

As for Love Rush’s inclusion in A Date for Mad Mary, this highly talented young singer says that more people that hear her music, the more likely she is to be able to forge a career for herself in the competitive world of music.