The Galway Music Residency and The Galway Ensemble in Residence:  ConTempo Quartet open their new series of free lunchtime concerts on Tuesday 02 September @ 1:10 pm with a programme featuring classical and contemporary music.   

Over the next ten months, these popular lunchtime concerts will feature ten quartets by the master of string quartet-writing: Austrian composer Joseph Haydn.  Over two hundred years later, composers are still enjoying writing for the string quartet.  Times have changed: composers no longer wear wigs and write with a pen, music is now available around the world in an instant thanks to modern technology.  The series will present some wonderful new quartets written over the past 50 years by composers from around the world.  Irish composers Kevin Volans and Martin O’Leary feature alongside works by Astor Piazzolla (Argentina), Michael Nyman (England), James MacMillan (Scotland), Terry Riley (USA) and others.   The opening event will feature ConTempo performing Haydn’s ‘Op. 76 no. 1 in G major’ from the ‘Erdödy Quartets’ and Riley’s ‘Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector.’  Each concert begins with a brief discussion of the pieces. 

All concerts take place the first Tuesday or each month.  Please visit www.thegalwaymusicresidency.ie for the concert series’ full schedule.