Nicola Geddes is a multi-disciplinary artist; poet, musician and teacher. Born in Scotland, she graduated with Honours in Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art, and holds a Diploma in Cello Performance from the London College of Music. She is now based in County Galway where she works as a cellist and tutor.
In 2018, Nicola initiated and was a founding member of Luminosa, Galway’s professional orchestra. Her performing experience on the cello is varied and covers a diversity of styles.
Nicola was an Artist in Residence in Interface in summer 26, where she developed spoken word and solo cello piece “Bodies of Water”, inspired by a local endangered species of fish, the Arctic Char. This piece has since been performed and broadcast in a variety of setting; an academic conference in UCC, an art exhibition in Swords Castle, in tanks in Interface and in the Lough Inagh Hotel as part of Sea Week 2026.
Publications include: The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Crannóg, Southword, The Galway Review, New Feathers, Crossways, The New Ulster, The Blue Nib, Vox Galvia, Skylight 47, Medusa and Poethead, and internationally, on the Extinction Rebellion Global Creative on-line hub, in the Pinch journal and Carmina (USA), The National (Scotland) and Poetry Scotland. Her poems have been broadcast on Lyric fm in Ireland and on Swiss national television, and can be found in the anthologies Writing Home (Dedalus Press) and Children of the Nation (Culture Matters) and Tell Me Who We Were Before Life Made Us (3 of Cups Press), Workers Write! (Blue Cubicle Press) and Poems for When you Can’t Find the Words (Irish Hospice Foundation/Poetry Ireland).
Awards include: Special Commendation – Patrick Kavanagh Award 2017, Highly Commended 2018 The Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. In May 2019 she won the Irish Times’ New Irish Writing. In late 2024 Nicola was awarded the poetry bursary from Crannóg magazine. In 2025 she was runner-up in the Latin Poetry Competition and Poet in Residence at Brigit’s Garden, Rosscahill, and in 2026 her poetry was shortlisted for the Redline Poetry Competition.
Cello Performances
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06ny9dz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQMh9iOVq58
https://roogeddes.bandcamp.com/album/close
With Luminosa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R69ikUGQp0A&t=213s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyRqlWBOQK4
Poetry
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2019/1107/1089403-writing-home-pat-boran-celebrates-the-new-irish-poets/
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/new-irish-writing-may-2019-s-winner-1.3892198
https://thegalwayreview.com/2024/05/31/nicola-geddes-five-poems/
https://fromtroublesofthisworld.wordpress.com/2024/07/
https://crosswayslit.wordpress.com/552-2/
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