MOZART’S MUCH loved Eine Kleine Nachtmusik will be performed by the Irish Chamber Orchestra in the 12th century surrounds of St Mary’s Cathedral Tuam on Wednesday at 8pm.
The concert will see the orchestra, led by violinist Katherine Hunka, joined by accordionist Dermot Dunne, perform Molique’s ‘Concerto for Accordion and Strings’ as well as tangos by Piazzolla and concertos by Vivaldi, as well as Mozart.
“Dermot and I are so delighted to play again in the beautiful St Mary’s that we’re bringing the whole orchestra this time to share the fun,” says Katherine Hunka, who has been leader of the ICO since 2002, and is also a member of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Dermot Dunne won the RTÉ Musician of the Future in 1996. He appears regularly as a soloist at venues and festivals nationwide and has toured across Europe and the Ukraine performing baroque to modern, from Bulgarian folk to Argentine tangos.
Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is one the composer’s most enduring and familiar serenades. It opens with a serenade that is as lucid and cheerful as anything Mozart wrote, followed by a romance of charm and ingenuity, a spry minuet and a final rondo, a conclusion to the remarkable series of serenades and divertimenti on which Mozart had embarked 20 years before, as a 10-year-old.
Piazzolla has developed a style known as nuevo tango, which fuses elements of jazz harmony and classical forms with the traditional tango. ‘La Muerte del Angel’ and ‘Resurreccion del Angel’ are from Piazzolla’s Angel series, composed for a film on the life of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Molique only wrote two concertos for the concertina. One of these, adapted by Franz Krieg for accordion, will be performed by Dermot Dunne.
Vivaldi specialised in the concerto, which was the genre that re-vitalised music in the late baroque style and led the way towards the classical style of Haydn and Mozart.
Tickets for this ‘Galway Arts Festival and Classicalinks presents show...’ are €25/23 and are available from the festival box office, Galway Tourist Office, Forster Street, www.galwayartsfestival.com, while a limited number of tickets will be on sale in Quinns, Tuam.