Classical Music | News, Interviews, Gigs, & More | The Irish Times

Rosetta Cucchi’s long connection to the festival goes back to 1995

Experienced insider takes reins at Wexford Festival Opera

Rosetta Cucchi will succeed David Agler as artistic director

Rosetta Cucchi began her Irish career as a répétiteur at the Wexford Festival in 1995.

Wexford Festival Opera appoints new artistic director

Italian-born Rosetta Cucchi has been involved with the festival since 1995

RTÉ ConTempo Quartet

ConTempo con brio: This week’s classical highlights

RTÉ ConTempo Quartet play in Sligo and Galway. Plus: ‘Banished’ in Kilmainham Gaol

Wexford Festival Opera artistic director David Agler

Wexford Festival Opera’s new direction puts its reputation on the line

Michael Dervan: Festival’s 2019 programme seems to undermine its selling points

Principal Guest Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Nathalie Stutzmann Photograph: Maxwell Photography

Nathalie Stutzmann and Chamber Music Gathering 2019 at the NCH

The highlight classical music events for the coming week

Maud MacCarthy under the pseudonym Swami Omananda Puri

Ireland’s forgotten violinist who was buried at Glastonbury

Maud MacCarthy, originally from Clonmel, sought music from across the globe

Brian Boydell: Paints a picture of himself as someone who was never passive about anything

Brian Boydell: A musical rebel in Roaring Forties Dublin

The Irish composer’s memoir is a homage to artistic life in neutral Ireland during the war

Kate Ellis: Sraith is a lonely and absorbing meditation for cello and electronics where Ellis in effect duets with herself, partnered by the notes she has already played and which then are manipulated by a sound engineer

Whispers of Eastern colour from composer Barry O’Halpin

‘Advice from a Caterpillar’ is a depiction on solo bass clarinet of the conversation in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ between Alice and the caterpillar

Seán Ó Dálaigh in Body Noise Work

Ropes, plants, baths and other musical instruments

Classical music highlights for this week include Kirkos’s Body Noise Work project

Magdalena Kozená

Musical ups and downs in a year of change and challenge

Year in Culture Review: Key directors stepped down, while performers stepped up in classical music and opera

Soprano Sylvia O’Brien performed at Sounding Out at Seanad Éireann

Sound ideas for musical equality, but still no wider vision

The NCH’s female composer commissioning scheme is a small step in the right direction

Manfred Hemm (Ramfis), and Gwyn Hughes Jones (Radamès) in Irish National Opera ‘Aida’. Photographer Pat Redmond

Aida: courageous production succeeds in story and spectacle

Review: Confidence permeates opening night of opera famed for its massiveness

Cellist Natalie Clein. Photograph: Neda Navaee

Irish National Opera goes for the big time; Gavin Bryars performs at his own birthday party

Classical music highlights for the coming week

The four programmes take the opportunities to some of the available extremes.

The complete Fennessy triptych steals the show from Bach

Classical Music: ‘Before Bach & After’ is Chamber Choir Ireland’s core season concert series for the season

The RTÉ Concert Orchestra at rehearsal in the National Concert Hall. Photograph Nick Bradshaw

From first principals to second fiddles: life in an Irish orchestra

Playing in the RTÉCO is no easy task, not least as rumours swirl about its future

David Brophy: conducted a moving performance of Britten’s War Requiem at the National Concert Hall to commemorate Armistice Day

From Mozart to Britten, the requiem will live forever

Composers have always been drawn to honour the dead with powerful, passionate music

Clarinettist Katherine Spencer

Three classical music concerts to see this week

British clarinettist Katherine Spencer with the ICO, Yury Revic and Benedict Kloeckner on short tour and Chamber Choir Ireland perform David Fennessy work

The Fidelio Trio played a selection of works by Clara Schumann, Joan Trimble, Rebecca Clarke and Lili Boulanger

Female Composer Series at NCH: a small step for women in music

The Sounding the Feminists initiative hopes to redress the gender balance in composition

The Sounding the Feminists and NCH schemes are designed to present few barriers to entry, while the Arts Council scheme is dizzyingly excessive. Photograph: Aleksandar Georgiev/Getty Images

Keep it simple: What the Arts Council can learn from Sounding the Feminists

New commissioning schemes for women composers are not all straightforward

Hugh Tinney

Hugh Tinney’s 60th birthday tour: this weeks classical music highlights

Plus: Female Composer Series at NCH, and piano competition winner Sae Yoon Chon

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