Music for Galway concerts to brighten winter months

Date Published: {J}

It’s autumn. The swallows are leaving. The leaves are falling. The nights are getting longer. But consolation comes from Music for Galway which has just launched its programme for 2011/2012.

Musicians from Ireland, The UK, The Ukraine, The Netherlands, Norway, Germany and Romania – some old friends, some new – will visit Galway from October until April for concerts and talks.

A special feature of this year’s season is a Meet the Musicians strand where the artists talk about their work informally or meet with young musicians.

Music for Galway’s season kicks off on Tuesday, October 11 with the RTE Vanbrugh Quartet, who team up with Andrea Banciu and Adrian Mantu, the viola and cello players from the Galway based ConTempo Quartet. The programme will include Brahms’ magnificent Sextet for Strings, and an open rehearsal will take place at Maoin Cheoil na Gaillimhe in the city’s St Mary’s College on Monday, October 10 at 5pm as part of Meet the Musicians.

Celebrity violinist Nicola Benedetti and friends visit in October for a concert featuring duos and trios for violin, cello and piano. Following her sell-out performances here last year with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, early booking is recommended for this performance, at NUIG’s Aula Maxima. It includes a pre-concert discussion with the musicians.

In November, there’s a two-night feast of Bach with Malcolm Proud performing all the Bach Partitas for solo harpsichord at the Aula Maxima. A film, The Chronicles of Anna Magdalena Bach, focusing on Bach’s life and music, will be screened as part of that event.

Handel’s Messiah, performed by Resurgam and the Irish Baroque Orchestra sets the scene for Christmas on December 10 in St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church.

Music for Galway’s Midwinter Festival returns to the Town Hall Theatre in January. Entitled Intimate Voices, it features the ConTempo Quartet and the vibrant Dutch Amstel Quartet in an eclectic programme, which will show some fantastic music in a new light.

The programme include Bach Fugues arranged by Mozart; Wagner’s Ring Cycle in 21 minutes; Sibelius’s Intimate Voices quartet; and compositions by Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt among others.

Baritone Gavan Ring, winner of the inaugural Bernadette Greevy Bursary joins ConTempo for Samuel Barber’s evocative Dover Beach while choreographer Judith Sibley and video artist Mihai Cucu add their talent to the mix. Meet the Musicians will take place with young Galway music students and ConTempo’s Apprentice Ensemble, the Chatham Saxophone Quartet.

Mozart is celebrated in February, when there’s a chamber music series of the great composer’s works with Norwegian violinist Marianne Thorsen, cellist Alice Neary and pianist Viv McLean. The Mozart weekend includes a screening of Phil Grabsky’s renowned documentary film, In Search of Mozart.

In February Dutch group Black Pencil will perform contemporary arrangements of folk tunes from the northern coast of South America in a concert at the Aula Maxima at NUIG.

Other highlights of the 2011/2012 season include two special programmes to celebrate the 150th birthday of the French composer Claude Debussy in 2012. In February UK pianist Rolf Hind will bring an imaginative recital programme entitled Debussy and Beyond. During his visit, Rolf will meet the public away from the piano for a presentation on ‘Musicians and Mindfulness’.

Meanwhile, in March, popular Dutch soprano Lenneke Ruiten returns to perform a selection of songs by Debussy and Chausson, with ConTempo Quartet and pianist Thom Jannsen.

In April the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra returns to Galway with pianist and conductor Barry Douglas in an all-Brahms programme. That concert is in Leisureland.

The National Chamber Choir ends the season on April 20 with music from Tarik O’Regan’s recently recorded on CD, Accalam na Senórach, or Tales of the Elders. That’s at St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church.

Full details on the season, booking details and membership options are available from Music for Galway at 091 705962, info@musicforgalway.ie or www.musicforgalway.ie