Friday 24th November 8 pm
The Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle
The Navarra Quartet
Benjamin Marquise Gilmore - violin
Bartosz Woroch- violin
Sasha Bota - viola
Brian O’Kane - cello

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 15 in D minor K421
Elizabeth Maconchy - String Quartet No. 3
Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky - String Quartet No. 3 in Eb minor Op. 30

Elizabeth Maconchy was born in England in 1907 to Irish parents and was a prolific and successful composer through much of the twentieth century. The third of her thirteen quartets is among the most popular and was written with Europe on the cusp of yet another war; it is dramatic, yearning and very much according to her feeling that ‘the best music is an impassioned argument’. Brian O’Kane’s celebrated Navarra Quartet opens with Mozart’s D minor quartet and ends with Tchaikovsky’s towering third quartet, perhaps most memorable for its slow movement which alternates between a doom-laden funeral march and the radiant beauty of remembrance. Taking its name from a bottle of red from the wine region famously known for its multicoloured landscapes, the Quartet’s diverse cultural backgrounds are united in serving the music with relentless passion and commitment.

A National String Quartet Foundation Tour
Courtesy of OPW