Tasmin Little (violin), Thomas Carroll (cello), RTÉ NSO/Gerhard Markso

NCH, Dublin Tonight 8pm 10-35 01-4170000

RTÉ NSO WILD CARD LATE NIGHT CONCERT

NCH, Dublin Tonight 10.15pm 5 01-4170000

RICK PECKHAM (ELECTRIC GUITAR), RTÉ NSO/SCOTT STROMAN

NCH, Dublin Tues, 1.05pm Adm free 01-4170000

Tonight’s RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra concert is a blue-chip affair, central repertoire in the safest of hands. Former principal conductor Gerhard Markson conducts Weber’s Freischütz Overture, Brahms’s Double Concerto for violin and cello (with Tasmin Little, above, and Thomas Carroll) and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.

Straight afterwards there’s a lucky-dip event, a late-night Wild Card concert about which no details will be divulged in advance. It’s free to ticket-holders for the main concert, and 5 for any adventurous souls who turn up solely for an encounter with the unknown.

The NSO’s series of free Tuesday lunchtime Horizons concerts continues this week with a new departure: a workshop and preview performance of Ronan Guilfoyle’s new Hands, his first concerto for electric guitar (Rick Peckham) and symphony orchestra, which will get its official first performance in the NSO’s subscription concert on January 20th.

Scott Stroman is the conductor on both occasions, and on Tuesday Guilfoyle can be heard at 12.30pm in a pre-workshop interview with the Contemporary Music Centre’s director, Evonne Ferguson.