Quiet Music Ensemble Celebrate John Cage in Cork

Quiet Music Ensemble Celebrate John Cage in Cork

Stephen Graham's classical music news, including live opera from New York, the Quiet Music Ensemble celebrating John Cage, Linda Buckley performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Irish Composers' Collective and a John Kinsella premiere.

Quiet Music Ensemble Celebrate John Cage in Cork

Quiet Music Ensemble will celebrate the centenary of John Cage’s birth at Triskel Arts Centre in Cork on 28 January. Their concert, which is entitled ‘Child of Tree’, seeks to pay particular homage to the music Cage created in the last twenty years of his life, from 1972 to 1992. Composer Karen Power will run a workshop for children of ages six—nine in association with Child of Tree from 2pm to 4pm on the day of the concert.

Entry to the concert is free, and attendees are encouraged to walk in and out of the venue at will. Start time is 6pm.

Child of Tree is supported by RTÉ Lyric FM. The event will be recorded for broadcast on Bernard Clarke’s Sunday evening show on the station, Nova.

quietmusicensemble.com

Irish Composers’ Collective Concert

The Irish Composers’ Collective stage their first concert of 2012 at 8.30pm on 19 January in the Kevin Barry Room of the National Concert Hall in Dublin. The concert will feature soprano Sue Rynhart and multi-instrumentalist Abigail Smyth performing music by ICC members, including Dylan Rynhart, Dennis Wyers, Hugh Boyle, Patrick Connolly, David Bremner and Donal Mac Erlaine.

Tickets are priced at €10 (€5 concessions).

irishcomposerscollective.org

The BBC Symphony Orchestra Perform Linda Buckley

The BBC Symphony Orchestra will perform Irish composer Linda Buckley’s chiyo on 17 February at the BBC Maida Vale Studios in London. chiyo was commissioned by RTÉ, and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra gave its world premiere on 27 May 2011. chiyo was inspired by the poetry of female Japanese haiku poet Chiyo-ni, and features a concentration on distinctive sound textures within the orchestra.

The BBCSO concert will also feature a piece by Richard Causton, alongside three compositions that have resulted from the Sound and Music/BBCSO Embedded Project, a year long series of workshops with younger composers.

bbc.co.uk

Irish Chamber Orchestra Premiere John Kinsella

New Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Partner of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Jörg Widmann, will lead the ensemble in its opening concert of 2012, on 9 February in the University Concert Hall in Limerick. The concert will feature the world premiere of the tenth symphony of Irish composer John Kinsella, a disc of whose orchestral works we recently reviewed here. Kinsella, former Head of Music at RTÉ and one of Ireland’s foremost orchestral composers, is marking his eightieth birthday this year with the premiere of the new symphony, his twenty-first orchestral work.

The concert also features works by Liszt, Beethoven and a suite for oboe and orchestra, The Flower Clock (with soloist Daniel Bates), by French composer Jean Francaix.

The concert starts at 8pm, and tickets are priced at €18 and €20 (€10 for students).

irishchamberorchestra.com

The Enchanted Island to be Broadcast Live to Twelve Irish Cinema Screens

The Enchanted Island, a ‘new’ opera assembled from a host of baroque operas and Shakesperean characters and scenarios by theatre and film director Jeremy Sams, will screen live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York to twelve cinemas acrossIreland on 21 January at 6pm.

The opera has an all star cast, including such singers as Placido Domingo, Joyce DiDonato, Danielle di Niese and David Daniels. The calibre of the cast is matched by the production’s creative team, which includes director Phelim McDermott, conductor William Christie and designer Julian Crouch.

The Met: Live in HD series is now in its sixth season, and will continue its current season with broadcasts of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung on 11 February, and Verdi’s Ernani on 25 February.

Details of venues and booking can be viewed here

Published on 14 January 2012

Stephen Graham is a lecturer in music at Goldsmiths, University of London. He blogs at www.robotsdancingalone.wordpress.com.

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