MUSIC INSPIRED by what it would be like to be an alien stranded on earth, music inspired by Oscar Wilde, and music that written in a WWII POW camp, will make up Captive, 2016's Music For Galway's mid-winter festival.
Captive - Music From The Abyss takes place in the Town Hall Theatre from Friday January 22 to Sunday 24, with performances from pianists Elizabeth Joy Roe and Finghin Collins, soprano Lynda Lee, violinist Owen Dalby, cellist Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, and clarinettest Carol McGonnell, along with members of the American DECODA ensemble, actor Diarmiud deFaoite, and academic William Schabas.
The festival opens with the contemporary, jazz influenced, ‘Catch’ by Thomas Adès, performed by Joy Roe, Dalby, Thorsteinsdottir, and McGonnell. Human rights lawyer and former head of NUIG's Irish Human Rights Centre, Dr William Schabas will talk about captivity, artistic expression, and creativity. One of the most iconic works of the 20th century, Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’, written and premiered in the Görlitz POW camp in 1941, will also be performed.
Saturday opens with the uplifting documentary, The Lady in No 6, about Alice Herz-Sommer, as the 109-year-old looks back on a life that has taken her from the concert halls of Europe to Theresienstad, a Nazi concentration camp, to surviving that ordeal and her later years in London. Lynda Lee and Finghin Collins will perform songs from music composed and performed in Theresienstad.
Sunday features the performance of an Irish premiere and a world premiere. Marc Neikrug's ‘Death Row Memoirs of an Extraterrestrial’, will see Diarmuid de Faoite explore the predicaments of an alien trapped in a human body.
The second piece, commissioned by Music for Galway by American composer Michel Galante is inspired by Oscar Wilde’s ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol’. De Faoite and the musicians will afterwards by interviewed by Finghin Collins. At 2pm there will be a chance to hear the artists rehearse.
Tickets are €20/16/6 for individual shows while a festival ticket is €55/45. To book contact 091 - 569777 or www.tht.ie
