Music for Galway Announces New Season

Dutch violinist Rosanne Philippens who will perform two concerts in Galway in October.

Music for Galway Announces New Season

Featured artists include Rosanne Philippens, Zoltán Fejérvari, Liverpool Quartet, Lenneke Ruiten, Finghin Collins, Olga Scheps, Natalie Clein, Maya Homburger, Malcolm Proud and Jochen Kupfer.

Music for Galway has announced its 41st concert season this week with over twenty concerts taking place between September and next April.

Artistic Director and pianist Finghin Collins has placed a particular emphasis on J.S. Bach this season with five concerts featuring the composer’s work.

During the pandemic, Music for Galway hosted an online festival focusing on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. This season, concerts will explore his instrumental music on baroque violin and harpsichord with Maya Homburger and Malcolm Proud (23 Nov.), on modern violin with Tedi Papavrami (15 Feb.), on guitar with Sean Shibe (5 and 6 March) and on modern piano with Cédric Pescia (27 April).

Each concert also features other composers who were influenced by Bach, and in late March the Irish Baroque Orchestra conducted by Peter Whelan will present Bach’s St Matthew Passion at Galway Cathedral. The opening concert of the season, on 29 September at Emily Anderson Concert Hall at the University of Galway, will feature Alexander Sitkovetsky, Sergey Malov and Natalie Clein performing a chamber music version of the Variations, which they performed online in 2021. They will repeat the concert at Christ Church in Portumna the following evening.

World premiere
On 6 October, Collins and the National Symphony Orchestra will give the world premiere of a new work by Jane O’Leary, unfolding soundscapes, conducted by Kenneth Montgomery. This will be partnered with Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, and the concert will be repeated at the NCH in Dublin the following evening.

Later in October, a concert by the Dutch violinist Rosanne Philippens and Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvari will feature sonatas by Beethoven as well as work by three students of the recently established music degree at University of Galway, Ellison Hassell-Cramer, Laura Heneghan and Katie Feeney. This concert takes place at the Emily Anderson Concert Hall on 20 October and will be repeated at Ionad Cultúrtha an Phiarsaigh in Rosmuc the following evening. In November at An Taibhdhearc, the Liverpool Quartet will perform Deirdre Gribbin’s Merrow Sang and string quartets by Zemlinsky and Shostakovich.

Festival
The annual Midwinter Festival, with the theme of ‘Seasons’, will take place on 20–22 January 2023 and feature the Irish Chamber Orchestra directed by Katherine Hunka performing Vivaldi and Piazzolla, pianist Olga Scheps performing Tchaikovsky and Chopin, bass-baritone Jochen Kupfer and Collins performing Schubert’s song cycle
Winterreise, and Lenneke Ruiten and Collins performing a range of work from Berlioz to Strauss in the final concert.

Further highlights in 2023 include the Collegium choir under Mark Duley performing two works by Spanish composers of the Renaissance – Missa pro defunctis (Requiem) by Tomás Luis de Victoria and Lamentations of Jeremiah by Alonso Lobo. There are also a number of lunchtime concerts, including Cork musicians Brendan Garde (violin) and Gary Beecher (piano); Cliona Doris (harp), Sinéad Walsh (flute) and Fiachra de hOra (viola) performing Bax and Debussy; a collaboration between cellist Annette Cleary (cello), pianist Réamonn Keary and actor Barry McGovern to create a new arrangement of Enoch Arden by Richard Strauss; and a poem and song cycle with words by Jane Robinson and music composed by Malachy Robinson, performed by the Far Flung Trio.

For further details and booking, visit www.musicforgalway.ie

Published on 7 September 2022

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