The annual Louth Contemporary Music Festival will take place this year on 13 and 14 June in Dundalk, presenting a programme based on the concept of echoes and repetition in contemporary music.

The festival, which takes place in various venues in Dundalk, will feature performances by Chamber Choir Ireland, Apartment House, the Aleph Guitar Quartet, pianist Daan Vandewalle and singer Daisy Press, with music by Bernhard Lang, Martin Smolka, Kevin Volans and Sarah Davachi.

‘It’s easy to get the feeling these days that it’s all happened before. Echoes can, of course, be comforting, suggesting that things are going as they did before,’ said Festival Director Eamonn Quinn speaking about the programme. ‘We survived that, so we can survive this. But they can also be troubling. The past was not echoing with echoes as our present seems to be. What is wrong that we go on recycling so much? And what is right? The questions will reverberate through “Echoes”, the 2025 instalment of the Louth Contemporary Music Festival.’

The festival will open on Friday 13 June at An Táin Arts Centre with two works by Austrian composer Lang. The Aleph Guitar Quartet, performing on amplified acoustic guitars, will be joined by Daisy Press to perform The Cold Trip Part 1. The quartet will also perform Lang’s Game 8-4-4.

At 1pm on Saturday 14 June, the festival will present Belgian pianist Daan Vandewalle, who will perform Lang’s Monadologie XXXVI Chopin 12 Etudes, a work that reinterprets fragments of Chopin’s études through repetition and transformation, at St Nicholas Church of Ireland. 

At 3pm, Daisy Press and the Aleph Guitar Quartet will perform a concert at the Chapel at St Vincent’s, playing Smolka’s Moon on the Sea and the world premiere of his new work, Svatý Kryštof (Sanctus Christophorus).

At 5pm, London-based ensemble Apartment House, joined by composer and performer Francesca Fargion, will reinterpret The Marble Index, the 1968 album by German singer-composer Nico and Velvet Underground member John Cale, in a live performance at The Spirit Store.

The final concert on Saturday, at 8pm at St Nicholas Church of Ireland, will feature Chamber Choir Ireland conducted by Nils Schweckendiek. The programme includes Kevin Volans’ Glosa a lo Divino and Beat Furrer’s Enigma, as well as a new work by Canadian composer Sarah Davachi.

For full details on all concerts and to book, visit www.louthcms.org.

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