Trumpets sound and angels sing

Cork 2005: "And I saw the seven angels which stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets"

The bible is blasting out all over Cork in the coming weeks, with the Book of Revelations resounding through the Everyman Palace from Thursday to Saturday next, and Judith slaughtering Holofernes in St Fin Barre's Cathedral on April 30th. (The cathedral, in fact, is almost over-booked, as it figures prominently as a venue for the Cork International Choral Festival which opens on April 27th. )

Given that virtuoso trumpeter Mark O'Keeffe says that his work for Apocalypse is not religious at all, it's probably better suited to the theatre, which anyway provides the best technical facilities for the computer-generated soundscapes and the prerecorded aspects of the score.

A graduate of the Cork School of Music, Youghal-born O'Keeffe has been principal trumpet player with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow for more than eight years, following a four-year engagement as associate principal trumpet with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.

His wide-ranging career in both training and performance terms has taken him all over the world, but in this collaboration with Glasgow's Theatre Cryptic he is finding a succession of new challenges.

"I saw Cathy Boyd's work with Theatre Cryptic in Black Over Red, in which she used the Latvian Radio Choir and I was so moved I felt immediately that I wanted to do something using the trumpet. As it turns out, it's seven trumpets, actually, to a score written by Anthea Haddow, and although the basis is a biblical text we haven't produced a narrative, rather a musical interpretation, and a modern one, of the notion of a cataclysmic event."

Working with Boyd and Haddow and commissioned by Cork 2005 plc, O'Keeffe has brought together six Irish trumpeters to present this apocalyptic vision - floods, meteors, locusts, war etc - in a series of accumulating episodes for which the musicians have to work from memory as they move around the stage.

"It's a different level of performance," says O'Keeffe, adding that the piece has a strong redemptive quality. "Cathy is a significant innovator and Cryptic represents a new era in the arts in Scotland. Her use of the orchestra with movement and lighting and visual technology offers a new challenge - and I love a challenge!"

If Revelations is full of smiting and plagues, then the Apocryphal Book of Judith is packed with destruction, seduction, deception and gore; composer and pianist John Gibson defends his choice of subject for his chamber opera, Judith and Holofernes, because to him it is a story of "prayer, drama, violence and resolution, the rescue of a minority from an arrogant and ruthless oppressor".

Scored for four soloists and a four-member chorus with piano, trumpet, recorder and percussion, the opera is to be presented by Cork Opera Works (which will also be presenting Hansel and Gretel at the Opera House later in the year) and directed by John O'Brien with design by Kathleen Fitzpatrick. Julia Canavan sings the rich widow Judith, with Martin Higgins as Holofernes.

The 12-scene libretto by Robert Craig is given a musical spirituality by Gibson's use of his own earlier settings of, for example, The Lord's Prayer, with an aria for Judith based on Joseph Mary Plunkett's song, I see His blood upon the Rose and another using the words of Psalm 102.

Perhaps this softening of the blood-drenched story is an indication of the opera's origin as a piece commissioned by the late Cecil Hurwitz to mark the 25th anniversary of the Peace Movement in Cork. Again, Cork 2005 are the major sponsors (with €8,000) for the hour-long piece, which will be performed at 5pm on Saturday April 30th at St Fin Barre's Cathedral as part of the Choral Festival programme.

In contrast, the relative peace and quiet of the New Testament is the context for the first performance in Cork of Handel's Saul, next Saturday night at 8pm and also at the cathedral.

This is presented by the East Cork Choral Society in aid of St Luke's Home in Mahon, and simply adds to the performance record of the Society which year after year offers the city oratorio performances which it would never hear otherwise.

And it offers them at full professional standard, as in this case with a cast including soprano Helen Hassett, counter-tenor Nicholas McMurry, tenor Robert Craig and bass Jeffrey Ledwidge, singing with East Cork choir and orchestra conducted by Colin Nicholls. Tickets from Pro Musica, cathedral shop or Society members.