The Walled City Music Festival is a small music festival in the city of Derry that is designed as an open platform for discourse and performance of chamber music, which has in the past hosted notable names such as the Kronos Quartet and Sir James Galway. This year’s festival was launched last weekend with a three-day tour of special recitals by perfomers that will feature in the festival itself. Cellist Jan Vogler and pianist Cathal Breslin performed a programme of Debussy, Bach and Shostakovitch in a tour that began on Friday in Derry, visited Queen’s University in Belfast on Saturday, and finished with a noon recital at the Hugh Lane Gallery on Sunday 24 June.

The festival full line-up of the festival itself, taking place 17 July to 4 August, has yet to be announced, but will feature the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, percussionist Colin Currie, and the Tine Thing Helseth Quintet. Bernard Lansky will be joined by cellist Li-Wei Qin in a performance of the complete Beethoven sonatas. Irish music is well represented at the Walled City Music Festival: Linda Buckley is Composer-in-Residence for the festival, while Matthew Slotkin and Sabrina Hu – also the festival’s artistic director – will perform a selection of contemporary Irish works for flute and guitar. Matthew Schellhorn will also perform a programme of contemporary Irish music, but for solo piano.

walledcitymusicfestival.com