Coracle: Siobhan Armstrong, Barnaby Brown and Griogair Labhruidh

The Galway Early Music Festival, recently voted amongst the top international festivals in Classical Music Magazine, returns for its 2012 edition on 17 May. The festival closes on 20 May.

This year’s festival is themed around the meeting of tradition and high art, and will look at what results when ‘tunes played at a peasant’s wedding find their way into the music at a castle feast, when hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes become the fashion at court, and when baroque harp discovers New World rhythms.’

Performers this year include The Cois Cladaigh Chamber Choir, who will celebrate their thirtieth anniversary and open the festival, François Lazarevtich & Les Musiciens de St-Julien, The Harp Consort with Andrew Lawrence-King, and Coracle (pictured), featuring harpist Siobhán Armstrong, Barnaby Brown and Griogair Labhruidh.

A range of free family events of music and theatre, in addition to the realisation of a project involving the sounds and music of medieval Galway being transmitted through smartphones, will also feature.

The festival will take place at St Nicholas Collegiate Church and various other locations around Galway City’s Medieval Quarter.

A full programme of events is available here.