Four Hands | Four Voices
Presented by Birr Vintage Week and Arts Festival in association with Birr Festival of Music and Irish Songmakers
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Maria McGrann soprano
Sarah Richmond mezzo-soprano Peter O'Reilly tenor Kevin Neville bass-baritone Rebecca Cohen & Niall Kinsella piano-duo Friday 5th August 2022, 8pm Birr Theatre and Arts Centre, Birr, Co.Offaly Tickets €20 from www.birrtheatre.com / +353 (0)57 9122911 |
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Four Hands | Four Voices is a concert that showcases exquisite German romantic songs, accompanied by not just one pianist, but two! The programme features Brahms’ jubilant Liebeslieder-Waltzer (Love-Song Waltzes) and Schumann’s sublime Spanische Liebeslieder (Spanish Love Songs), plus solo songs by Clara Schumann and delightful, dance-inspired piano duets by Schubert, that are sure to have you waltzing in the aisles. Four Hands | Four Voices has been performed to rapturous applause at Dublin’s National Concert Hall by some of the most exciting performers working in Ireland, the UK and Europe today.
Programme includes:
Schubert: Four Polonaises, D.599 (15’)
Schumann: Spanische Libeslieder, Op. 139 (20’)
Brahms: Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 152 (25’)
Plus a selection of solo songs by Franz Schubert, Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.
Programme includes:
Schubert: Four Polonaises, D.599 (15’)
Schumann: Spanische Libeslieder, Op. 139 (20’)
Brahms: Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 152 (25’)
Plus a selection of solo songs by Franz Schubert, Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.
The French Connection: Franco-Irish Songs
Niall Kinsella, Andrew Gavin and Kelli-Ann Masterson perform a recital programme that explores the parallels between Irish Art Song and French mélodie. The programme will include songs to Irish texts by French composers such as Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), Henri Duparc (1848-1943) and Émile Paladilhe (1844-1926). There will also be songs by composers of Irish ancestry who were working and living in France: Joseph O’Kelly (1828-1885) who came from a family of noted musicians, and Irish-American composer Swan Hennessy (1866-1929) who settled in Paris in 1903. Whereas Berlioz, Duparc and Paladilhe chose French translations of Irish poet Thomas Moore for their musical settings, O’Kelly and Hennessy set texts of many of the great French poets such as Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, Verlaine, Baudelaire. Many of these songs have lain undiscovered for decades and have only recently been rediscovered by musicologist Axel Klein.
Kathleen Ferrier: A Life in MusicRaphaela Mangan contralto
Niall Kinsella piano Friday 22 April 2022, 1:05pm National Concert Hall, Dublin Tickets €15 / €12 From NCH Box Office / (01) 417 0000 or www.nch.ie |
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Described as ‘an evocative and genuine tribute’ (Sunday Business Post), Irish contralto Raphaela Mangan and pianist Niall Kinsella present their programme in celebration of the life of singer Kathleen Ferrier. One of the greatest voices of the 20th-Century, Ferrier’s meteoric rise to fame in the 1940s was cut short by her untimely death in 1953. Reprising their much-acclaimed concert by popular demand on Ferrier’s 110th Birthday, the programme contains music by Handel, Schubert, Elgar, Britten and favourites such as ‘Blow the Wind Southerly’, ‘What is Life to me Without Thee?’ and ‘The Salley Gardens’. This concert also celebrates the 10th Birthday of Irish Songmakers, whose first concert was this day ten years ago.
Schubert: WINTERREISEAndrew Gavin tenor
Niall Kinsella piano Sunday 6th March 2022, 3pm Smock Alley Theatre, 1662 7 Exchange Street Lower Temple Bar, Dublin 8 Tickets €20/€16 (student/oap) Tickets available from www.smockalley.com / (01) 677 0014 |
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Rising-star Irish tenor Andrew Gavin and pianist Niall Kinsella perform Franz Schubert’s great song-cycle, Winterreise. One of the composer’s late works, composed in the final year of his life, Winterreise, or Winter Journey, has long captured the imaginations of audiences and performers alike. The cycle is an exploration of the human condition set over twenty-four scenes, which travel the inner journey of the soul, dealing with themes of loss, isolation, rejection, anger and unrequited love.
