Multi-talented Raphaël for cello season

French cellist Raphaël Merlin will be joined by Galway’s ConTempo Quartet at NUIG’s Aula Maxima next Monday night, March 9, for Music for Galway’s latest concert.

It’s part of Music for Galway’s Cellissimo series, celebrating that instrument, and will feature Boccherini’s quintet in C major, well known for its lively rondo finale, as well as Schubert’s quintet in C major.

ConTempo will also perform Mozart’s String Quartet K. 575 which Mozart wrote while under financial strain, hoping to sell it to the King of Prussia, who was himself an accomplished cellist.

The special guest Raphaël Merlin, is a member of the internationally acclaimed Quatuor Ebène and has been a multi-instrumentalist since childhood, with an interest in jazz as well as classical music. As a teenager, while undergoing his classical training at the Conservatoire in Clermont, he also found time to pursue jazz, writing songs, joining a big-band, and establishing a jazz quartet.

But chamber music has remained a constant and he has been a member of the Ebène Quartet since 2002, performing in the world’s greatest concert halls.  Raphaël also produces and records across a range of musical genres – classical, jazz, tango and traditional.

He will be joined on Monday night by Galway’s ConTempo Quartet, who recently performed Haydn and Shostakovich for Music for Galway’s Midwinter Festival at the Town Hall Theatre in January.

The internationally acclaimed quartet was formed in 1995 in Romania and began its work as Galway’s Ensemble in Residence eleven years ago. The quartet has won many international prizes and performed more than a thousand concerts all over the world, including Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Berliner Philarmoniker. Most recently, ConTempo has been named the RTÉ ConTempo Quartet.

■ Tickets for the concert are €18/€14 (concession) / €6 (full time students) Admission for MFG Friends is free. Booking at Music for Galway 091 705962, or Opus 2, 4 High Street, or www.musicforgalway.ie