Pat O’Kelly ‘Treat’, meaning something that gives great pleasure, seems to be out of fashion but I am reminded of it recently in three programmes at the National Concert Hall, which I consider merit the accolade. The first comes from the period-instrument Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) conducted by Budapest-born pianist András…
Pat O’Kelly Like the first performances of both Rossini’s The Barber of Seville in Rome on February 20, 1816, and Verdi’s La Traviata in Venice on March 6, 1853, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly was a flop at its Milan première on February 17, 1904. The principal problem with the Rossini lay with supporters of rival…
Pat O’Kelly New Music Dublin, cancelled in 2018 due to weather, then partially salvaged last September resurrected itself at the beginning of this month for an action-packed weekend. However, one would require exceptional stamina to cover the broad spectrum of its endeavours. As festival director John Harris commented, “the range of music being performed…
Pat O’Kelly Besides organising its touring programme, Music Network, which stemmed from the now defunct Music Association of Ireland’s ‘Country Tours’, also administers the government-sponsored Music Capital Scheme. The recently announced 2019 fund of €270,250 will be dispensed towards “the purchase of musical instruments to both non-professional performing groups and to individual performing musicians”.…
Pat O’Kelly In the presence of its indefatigable nonagenarian artistic director, the 2019 Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition drew an interesting contingent of young singers to the National Concert Hall at the end of January. For the first time in the triennial competition’s history, auditions were held abroad with jury chairman Jane Carty and…
Pat O’Kelly Following the departure of Kazakh musician Alan Buribayev when his extended contract expired in 2016, the RTÉ NSO has been without a principal conductor. In the ‘interregnum’ there have been a number of visiting artists on the podium not least Nathalie Stutzmann who has been principal guest conductor since 2017. Born in…
Pat O’Kelly While pianist Finghin Collins pursues a busy international career he also finds time to act as artistic director of both the late September New Ross Piano Festival and Music for Galway. The latter spreads itself across ‘the season’ and enshrines a Midwinter Festival in January. Although Collins’ brainchild, his Galway committee actively…
Pat O’Kelly While there is always an air of expectancy about January it can be a time to reminisce about the previous 12 months and recall some of the ‘highs’ as well as the ‘lows’. Deaths among the country’s musical fraternity included the multi-faceted composer/pianist/professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and friends Máire Larchet and Margaret…
Pat O’Kelly Not surprisingly, December reaps its usual crop of Handel’s Messiah even if the work relates to Christ’s Passion and Resurrection as much as to His Nativity. Messiah covers the Church’s year from advent to advent with Christ Triumphant as its magnificent coda. Along with the Irish Baroque Orchestra, the choral group Resurgam,…
Pat O’Kelly Following the première of Don Carlos at the Paris Opéra in March 1867, Verdi returned to his farm at Sant’ Agata in the Po valley. He found peace on the land he loved and where he planted trees, cultivated vines and bred his horses. Maybe he would now retire! He had often…