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Alan Buribayev launches the NSO season with a free concert today. Photograph: Cyril Byrne The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra is out of touch with the music of its own time

The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra is failing to engage with modern music, and this needs to change

Guitarist Roland Dyens From intimacy on the guitar, to a percussive musical storm

Roland Dyens was in charming form at the Guitar Festival of Ireland, while Mantra Percussion tried to take the Drogheda Arts Festival by storm

People enjoy the sun on the tarmac of former Tempelhof Airport. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images Four views of Berlin, from east to west and music to museums

Who better to ask for a tour of Berlin than some of its finest musicians, the Vogler Quartet?

Simon Rattle conducts the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Haydn’s Creation at the National Concert Hall this Sunday Lang Lang, Rattle, Brazil and Bell: the musical season ahead

The National Concert Hall and the Irish Baroque Orchestra have revealed ambitious programmes for the next 12 months

Paul Hillier’s ‘ability to navigate the atlas of choral repertoire must be second to none’. Photograph: Frank Miller It’s a European Union, but is there musical harmony?
  • Music
  • Andrew Johnstone
  • April 23, 2013, 07:00

The National Chamber Choir performed an array of ‘masterworks’, but why did so much of the enjoyment seem to be the choir’s

Sergei Nakariakov: ‘In nearly 50 years of concert-going I have never encountered trumpet playing like this’ Music that moves through time and space
  • Music
  • Martin Adams
  • April 16, 2013, 06:00

Wagner’s music narrows the space between listener and composer like no other

Mark Ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener in A Late Quartet The group dynamics in an intense four-way marriage

A new film gives an accurate snapshot of the bizarre dynamics involved in a typical string quartet

Members of Shelter Me from the Rain, a new opera, with conductor Fergus Shiel. Photograph: Cyril Byrne The story of a conductor

Michael Dervan talks to conductor Fergus Sheil in advance of his tour with the BBC Singers

Celine Byrne shines as Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre

The Irish soprano gives a star turn in this new production by the Moscow State Opera, serving to highlight how few opportunities there are for Irish singers here

Beware of operas bearing traditional gifts

Several opera companies are keen to play up the tradition in their productions. It’s inaccurate and unnecessary

Young voices

Twenty-four glorious voices filled a room in the Mansion House, Dublin, last weekend, as part of the Irish Youth Chamber Choir…

Heiner Goebbels: 'I hope that in the near future I am also able to show Ireland something of what I understand with the wider term of music theatre, which has . . . nothing to do with opera' 'My work needs no introduction. Either it works or it doesn't'

Wrong notes aren’t a problem, opera is of little interest, and he can’t quite name any composers who have influenced him: Heiner…

Music business: Haydn became Europe's most respected composer The Europeans, no 8: Haydn
  • Classical
  • Enda O'Doherty
  • February 20, 2013, 00:00

The Austrian composer bridged the transition from writing music for patrons to writing for a paying audience

Alexander Raskatov: 'The bigger the country, the greater the gravitation that it has. I wonder if the citizens of Luxembourg could have nostalgia for their country' 'I love my country to this day - probably more than it loves me'

For composer Alexander Raskatov, there’s no place like mother Russia, but he is still delighted to see one of his works get its…

Conor Biggs will sing the complete body of work by Schubert, in 35 recitals spread over 10 years Blue suede Schubert

Conor Biggs is about to embark on a complete Schubert cycle of 577 songs – and he’s looking to Elvis for inspiration, writes …

Rté Philharmonic Choir, RTÉ Nso/Gerhard Markson NCH

Dublin Tonight 8pm €10-€35 01-4170000

A bunch of amateurs in classical music - and it's all the better for it

You don’t have to be a professional to make an impact in music – but you will have to practise like one

Musical horizons, near and far

As the annual Horizons series begins, we asked the four featured composers four questions each about the music that inspires …

Video interview John Grant opens up to The Ticket
 

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