28 June 2016
By Bryan T. Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
When: Friday 1st – Saturday 9th July,
Where: Bantry, West Cork.
Celebrating it’s 21st anniversary this year, the West Cork Chamber Music Festival which takes place from 1st to 9th of July, has a wonderful programme of concerts from world class musicians.
With record ticket sales this year, a number of concerts are sold out. The good news for those who have yet to book is that there are still some tickets left for other special concerts in St Brendan’s Church and Bantry House, nestled in the beautiful surroundings of Bantry Bay in West Cork.
The festival welcomes a dazzling array of singers including the young French mezzo soprano, Anna Reinhold. Anna performs a remarkable programme of early 18th century song by Italian women composers in St Brendan’s Church on Monday, 4th July. She returns on Thursday, 7th July in the Crespo Series evening concert in St Brendan’s Church to sing two French song-cycles – Ravel’s Chansons Madécasses and Fauré’s Chanson d’Eve. Fans can catch her once again when she appears in the late night concert on Friday, 8th July, joining tenor Mark Padmore, pianist Julius Drake, and vocal trio Voice, for Janáček’s Diary of one who Disappeared.
Francis Humphrys, Director of West Cork Chamber Music Festival and Eimear O’Herlihy, Director of West Cork Literary Festival at Vaughans Point, Bantry for the launch of the West Cork Literary Festival and West Cork Chamber Music Festival. Pic: Darragh Kane.
Another singer appearing in Bantry will be German soprano Caroline Melzer who will perform György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments, accompanied by violinist Nurit Stark. With forty fragmentary texts, each a compressed story, Kurtág’s well-known piece is like a complete festival in itself and will be performed in St Brendan’s Church on Monday, 4th July.
Elsewhere during the festival, works by Brahms, Beethoven, Bartók, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Telemann, Vivaldi, Bach, Shostakovich, Handel and more will be performed by eighty five world-class musicians.
Ireland’s only instrument-making exhibition will run throughout the festival; while young musicians will be tutored by virtuoso performers as part of the festival’s renowned masterclass programme.
The complete festival programme can be found and online booking can be made at www.westcorkmusic.ie, Telephone +353 (0) 27 52788 or Lo Call 1850 788789.
The West Cork Chamber Music Festival is generously supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Failte Ireland, Crespo Foundation, RTE lyric fm and Cork County Council.
