National Symphony Orchestra Ireland will make a welcome return to Leisureland on Saturday, March 28, with two classic works celebrating the spirit of adventure and discovery.
In association with Music for Galway, Ireland’s largest professional orchestra will perform Shaun Davey’s epic The Brendan Voyage, and Dvo?ák’s monumental ‘New World’ Symphony - one of the great symphonic showpieces.
The acclaimed Irish conductor David Brophy, now chief conductor with Cologne’s WDR Funkhausorchester, leads these thrilling musical journeys with the extraordinary uilleann piper Mark Redmond joining as soloist.
In the year which marks the 50th anniversary of historian Tim Severin’s re-creation of Saint Brendan’s heroic sixth-century crossing of the Atlantic in a primitive leather-skinned boat, do not miss this opportunity to hear, for the very first time in Leisureland, Davey’s thrilling The Brendan Voyage performed by National Symphony Orchestra Ireland.
In Shaun Davey’s setting, the evocative voice of the uilleann pipes lights up the dramatic journey into the unknown, as the medieval traveller encounters seabirds and whales en route from Ireland to the Faroe Islands, then Iceland, and onward through battles with Labrador gales and ice, before a triumphant arrival at what explorers would later call Newfoundland.
Best known for its haunting ‘Largo’, the soundtrack to countless film soundtracks and television adverts, Dvo?ák’s Ninth Symphony boasts a parade of memorable melodies. It is a celebration of the folk music and Negro spirituals he discovered in America; its sirenic echoes of traditions Dvo?ák left behind in his native Bohemia combine in one of the great symphonic showpieces: a nostalgic love letter to far-distant home, sent from the New World.
Tickets €15-€30 from www.musicforgalway.ie or call 091705962
