The National Concert Hall’s Autumn/Winter Chamber Music Series returns to the Kevin Barry Recital Room boasting a number of world premieres as well as a range of popular chamber music favourites. 

The series includes a number of Sunday afternoon concerts in association with the National String Quartet Foundation and two evening recitals by celebrated pianist Máire Carroll performing the works of Philip Glass. 

Concert details (see full programme details and biographies below)

Sunday 23 October, 3pm
Pirosmani Quartet
Tickets

Wednesday 2nd and 9th November, 7.30pm
Máire Carroll: Philip Glass’ Piano Études
Tickets

Sunday 6 November
Liverpool Quartet
Tickets

Sunday 13 November, 3pm
Solas Quartet
Tickets

Sunday 27 November, 3pm
Marmen Quartet
Tickets

Sunday 11 December, 3pm
Ficino Quartet
Tickets

***

Full programme details and biographies

Sunday 23 October, 3pm
Pirosmani Quartet
Tickets

Pirosmani Quartet
Mairéad Hickey violin
William Hagen violin
Georgy Kovalev viola
Ella van Poucke cello

Beethoven Quartet in D major Op.18 No.3 [1798]
Sean Doherty ‘Night piece’ [2020]
Brahms Quartet in A minor Op.51 No.2 [1873]

Cork violinist Mairéad Hickey leads a star-studded line-up of international musicians. Beethoven’s Op.18 No.3 was by some accounts his first string quartet and from its lyrical opening to its fleet-footed finale it carries the hallmarks of the master’s genius. We lost many of Brahms’ quartets through his obsessive self-censorship, but this magnificent A minor quartet is one of the three masterpieces that escaped his fireplace. Sean Doherty’s fine ‘Night Piece’ was written for Mairéad Hickey’s Ortus Festival in Cork in February 2020.

Presented by the NCH in association with the National String Quartet Foundation.

***

Wednesday 2nd and 9th November, 7.30pm
Máire Carroll: Philip Glass’ Piano Études
Tickets

Philip Glass finished his set of 20 piano Études in 2012, a project that took Glass over two decades to complete. Glass composed his two volumes of piano études across two decades between 1991 and 2012 during a productive period of collaboration, performance and commissioning. Nico Muhly, composer and long-term collaborator of Glass, has described these etudes as “little diagrams of where his head is at the time”. Though Glass’s first book of études primarily emphasized the idea of the piece as an exercise, the second set developed into what Glass called “an extension of a musical journey undertaken in the last ten years.”

Máire Carroll is a concert pianist who has performed throughout Europe, Asia, United States and Canada including performances at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, National Opera House in Tallinn, Liszt Academy, Budapest, the Barbican, Royal Over-Seas League, St. John’s Smith Square and the National Concert Hall, Dublin. Máire is the Artistic Director of Hidden Pianos, which she launched in 2018 with the aim of sharing classical and contemporary music in site-specific locations. Hidden Pianos is an intimate performance experience bringing the piano to exciting venues and has been featured on RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ Lyric FM, RTÉ Culture and The Irish Times. Venues so far have included Dublin Port, Waterways Ireland, 14 Henrietta Street, Lighthouse Cinema and MoLI. Her recent Hidden Pianos commission from the National Gallery of Ireland was premiered in June 2022 and is inspired by Renaissance artist Lavinia Fontana. In 2020 Máire was delighted to take part in a residency at the Banff Centre of the Arts, Canada for Hidden Pianos.

***

Sunday 6 November
Liverpool Quartet
Tickets

Liverpool Quartet
Roisín Walters violin
Sarah Hill violin
Dani Sanxis viola
Nick Byrne cello

Piazzolla Four Seasons of Buenos Aires [1970]
Deirdre Gribbin Merrow Sang [2007]
Zemlinsky Quartet No.1 in A major Op.4 [1896]

Róisín Walters’ Liverpool Quartet brings an exciting and varied programme including their own arrangement of the impassioned tangos of Piazzolla’s extraordinary Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Still relatively unknown, Zemlinsky pursued a parallel compositional path to Schoenberg and this beautiful early masterpiece is very much in the genre of Brahmsian late romanticism. Deirdre Gribbin’s magical and mysterious Merrow Sang from 2007 vividly recounts a tale of merrow-maidens emerging from the sea during the burial of one the Cantillon family of Ballyheigue.

Presented by NCH in association with the National String Quartet Foundation

***

Sunday 13 November, 3pm
Solas Quartet
Tickets

Solas Quartet
Katherine Hunka violin
Marja Gaynor violin
Cian Ó Dúill viola
Aoife Nic Athlaoich cello

with Ed Creedon viola

Boccherini Quartet in G minor Op.33 No.5 [1783]
John Kinsella ‘A Reeling Rhapsody’ for two violins [1989]
Amy Beach Quartet Op.89 [1921]
Dowland ‘Lachrimae Antiquae’ and ‘Earl of Essex his Galliard’ [1605]
Mendelssohn String quintet in B flat Op.87 [1845]

​​​​​The Solas Quartet first performed as the 2020 Quartet in online concerts during that autumn’s lockdown. Now we welcome them in real life splendour, led by Irish Chamber Orchestra leader Katherine Hunka, in a fascinatingly varied programme spanning four centuries and reflecting the wide-ranging musical talents and specialities of the quartet’s members. For the second half of the concert, they are joined by Cork violist Ed Creedon for Mendelssohn’s brilliant B flat string quintet.

Presented by NCH in association with the National String Quartet Foundation

***

Sunday 27 November, 3pm
Marmen Quartet
Tickets

Marmen Quartet
Johannes Marmen violin
Laia Valentin Braun violin
Bryony Gibson-Corish viola
Sinéad O’Halloran cello

Bartók Quartet No.4 in C major [1928]
Ian Wilson ‘Rossiniana’ [2018]
Beethoven Quartet Op.59 No. 2 ‘Rasoumovsky’ [1808]

Cork cellist Sinéad O’Halloran joined the Marmen Quartet in June of 2021 at a time when the quartet’s international star continues to rise, with a busy schedule including concerts at the Berlin Philharmonic, the BBC Proms and the Lucerne Festival. Their programme opens with one of Bartók’s greatest and most riveting masterpieces, its tightly symmetrical structure centred on a deeply atmospheric central movement. Ian Wilson’s slick and entertaining collage of famous Rossini themes is followed by Beethoven’s towering second ‘Rasoumovsky’ quartet with, at its heart, a rapturous slow movement inspired by contemplation of the starry firmament.

Presented by NCH in association with the National String Quartet Foundation

***

Sunday 11 December, 3pm
Ficino Quartet
Tickets

Ficino Quartet
Elaine Clark violin
Hugh Murray violin
Nathan Sherman viola
Yseult Cooper Stockdale cello

Schubert Quartetsatz in C minor D.703 [1820]
Philip Glass ‘Mishima’ [1985]
Linda Buckley ‘Circuit Bend’ [2022] Dublin première*
Ravel Quartet in F major [1903]
*Commissioned by the National String Quartet Foundation with funds from The Arts Council

The Ficino Quartet features four of our leading musicians and has toured annually for the Foundation since 2018. Here they present another fascinating programme including Philip Glass’s hugely popular ‘Mishima’, drawn from his 1985 soundtrack to Paul Schrader’s film on the life of author, playwright and latter-day Samurai, Yukio Mishima. The concert also features a new commission by Cork composer Linda Buckley, and Ravel’s evergreen string quartet from 1903.

Presented by NCH in association with the National String Quartet Foundation

***

For more, visit www.nch.ie.