The Dublin International Chamber Music Festival (formerly Great Music in Irish Houses) has announced its programme for 2024. This year’s event runs from 4 to 9 June with concerts taking place across Dublin and Wicklow including Richmond Barracks, The Complex, Casino Marino, Killruddery, Windmill Qtr and the National Botanic Gardens.

Commissions and premieres
For the opening concert, the festival has commissioned a new work for clarinet and string quartet from Ann Cleare that will be performed by clarinettist Carol McGonnell and JACK Quartet at Richmond Barracks on 4 June. The work, which takes inspiration from the political and military history of the venue, will be performed along with works by Ruth Crawford Seeger and Kaija Saariaho, as well as Three Imaginary Chansons by Juri Seo, receiving its Irish premiere.

A new multi-disciplinary piece by soprano Elizabeth Hilliard, composer David Bremner and visual artist Louise Manifold will receive its world premiere at the festival on 5 June at the Complex in Smithfield. Split Infinites is part-concert, part-installation and is based on a collection of poems by American poet Rosmarie Waldrop, featuring projections, electronics, and sung text and materials.

South African cellist and singer Abel Selaocoe, who performed at last year’s festival, returns this year and will present the world premiere of his new work Ditshomo Tsa Barolong/Tales of the Barolong Tribe, along with other works of his own (5 June). Selaocoe’s work explores the links between Western and non-Western musical traditions and combines virtuosic performance with improvisation, singing and body percussion.

On 8 June, the festival will also present a day of concerts dedicated to the music of Black composers in the Townhall venue in the Windmill Qtr in Dublin. Cellist Matthew Sharp, pianist Dearbhla Brosnan and the Irish Youth Training Choir with conductor Patrick Barrett will perform a lunchtime concert of works by Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen. The concert will include her song Inherit the World, specially commissioned for the climate change conference COP 26. American-Irish clarinettist Berginald Rash will present a selection of works for solo clarinet by Black American composers Ed Bland, Tyler Bloomfield, Adolph Hailstork, GJ Jackson and James Lee III, and later that evening, pianists Máire Carroll, Thérèse Fahy, Ruth McGinley, Veronica McSwiney and Fionnuala Moynihan will each present a work by a Black female composer, the details of which have not yet been announced.

On 9 June, pianist Hugh Tinney performs at Kilruddery House in Wicklow with Carol McGonnell, violinist Katherine Hunka and cellist Adrian Brendel. The programme will include Deirdre Gribbin’s Strawberry Moon as well as chamber works by Brahms, Beethoven and Schubert. 

Also taking place at the festival is a performance by the Berlin-based Leonkoro Quartet at the National Botanic Gardens; a performance by accordionists Dermot Dunne and Martin Tourish of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, arranged by Dunne; and a family concert with the Far Flung Trio – comprising accordionist Dermot Dunne, Hunka and double bass player Malachy Robinson – at Kilruddery House.

A limited number of early bird tickets are currently available, with general booking opening on 22 April. See the full programme below. For further information, visit https://dicmf.com.

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