The Sligo Baroque Music Festival takes place from 29 September to 1 October.

This year the festival has a variety of concerts, with top performers from Ireland and abroad, and for the first time a fully staged Baroque opera, Handel’s pastoral comedy Acis and Galatea, set in a puppet theatre with the singers and players of Collegium Marianum from Prague, and the Buchty a Loutky marionnette theatre company.

The festival will also feature
– Mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty (star of INO’s recent Cosi Fan Tutte) with an enchanting selection of operatic arias in Handel’s witches, bitches and britches
– Westland Baroque, an ensemble of young graduates of the RIAM, will give a recital of French music, as well as taking Baroque music to schools around Sligo
– Two concerts by members of Collegium Marianum: Soiree at Versailles - pieces for flute, theorbo and viola da gamba, and Meditations – sacred motets by French composers of the seventeenth century.
– Sligo Baroque Orchestra performing concerti grossi by Corelli, Heinichen, Fasch and others
– A proms concert by Sligo Academy of Music students and a choral concert by Sligo Youth Voices

And in the run-up to the weekend, the festival is joining with the Hawk’s Well Theatre on Culture Night, Friday 22 September, to present Sligo Baroque Orchestra and a host of traditional Irish musicians in a new rendition of the Tradroque concert which was so successful in 2018.

Booking for the festival is now open. See full details below or visit www.sligobaroquefestival.com.

Tradroque
Friday 22 September 2023
20:00
Hawk’s Well Theatre
Irish traditional and European baroque music meet in this exciting collaboration between Sligo Baroque Orchestra and Michael Rooney on harp, Liam Kelly on flute, Leonard Barry on pipes and Seamie O’Dowd on guitar. Commissioned by Sligo Baroque Music Festival and The Hawk’s Well Theatre, this free concert celebrates Culture Night and the launch of the Baroque Festival.
Tickets

Sharon Carty, Handel Arias
Friday 29 September 2023
19:30
St John’s Cathedral
In this new edition of her fascinating “Witches, bitches and britches” programme, mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty showcases Handel’s range of dazzling and dark arias for both male and female roles, accompanied by Baroque specialists Claire Duff, Nicola Cleary, Lisa Dowdall, Norah O’Leary and David Adams.
Tickets

Westland Baroque
Saturday 30 September 2023
13:00
Gillooly Hall
A French-themed recital with pieces by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Jean-Marie Leclair, and one of Telemann’s Paris quartets. Westland Baroque (Michael Noonan, flute, Kevin Meehan, violin, Peadar Ó Loinsigh, cello and Laoise McMullin, harpsichord) are a new ensemble based at RIAM, who performed at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in June.
Tickets

Sligo Youth Voices
Saturday 30 September 2023
14:30
City Hall
The 61 members of Sligo Youth Voices are delighted to give a free public concert in the old City Hall (no booking required). The young singers with support from Music Generation Sligo have been engaging with Baroque music and receiving tuition from Festival artist mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty. Together with members of Westland Baroque ensemble, they will perform Handel pieces including the Hallelujah Chorus and O Lovely Peace.

Music Generation Sligo provides opportunities to all children and young people to access and participate in high quality music performance education that will encourage and inspire Sligo’s future young musicians. This year for example Music Generation are supporting the Festival to bring engaging workshops to schools in Sligo, where local children will hear live performances on Baroque instruments and get to interact with the music and musicians in a familiar setting.

Meditations
Saturday 30 September 2023
19:00
St John’s Cathedral
Vojtech Semerad, counter-tenor, Ondrej Holub, tenor, and Tomas Kral, baritone, sing expressively meditative and at times dramatic works by 17th century French composers, including Charpentier’s Meditations for Holy Week, with instrumental interludes.
Tickets

Soirée at Versailles
Saturday 30 September 2023
21:00
Gillooly Hall
Jana Semeradova, flute, with Hana Flekova, viola da gamba, and Jan Krejca, theorbo, present a diversity of chamber pieces such as were played to entertain the French courts of Louis XIV and XV of an evening, in the atmospheric nocturnal setting of the Gillooly Hall.
Tickets

Sligo Academy of Music Proms
Sunday 1 October 2023
12:00
The Model
Students interested in learning the techniques of period instruments and playing have been rehearsing a concert of favourite works by Baroque composers. All are welcome to hear them perform and cheer on their enthusiasm! Free entry, no booking required.

Sligo Baroque Orchestra
Sunday 1 October 2023
16:00
The Model
Sligo Baroque Orchestra will perform a programme of 18th concerti grossi tracing the development of the form in England, contrasted with compositions in Bohemia and Germany. This concert will be given in the beautiful setting of the Niland gallery at The Model.
Tickets

Acis and Galatea
Sunday 1 October 2023
19:30
Hawk’s Well Theatre
Handel’s delightful pastoral opera Acis and Galatea, with a witty text in English, has nymphs and shepherds, love and jealousy, and wonderful music and song. This fully staged production by Collegium Marianum and Buchty & Loutky is set in a Baroque puppet theatre, where the singers and puppets interact to Handel’s uplifting score played by the full orchestra. We are proud to offer this beloved Baroque jewel as the Festival’s first opera.
Tickets

For further details, visit the link below.