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Musical fun chambered and ready to go

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The Killaloe Chamber Music Festival returns to the South East Clare town after an absence of more than a decade this weekend and musicians will be coming from across the globe to showcase the best of Viennese composition.
The revival event has been organised by Clarecastle resident John Horgan, who was involved with the original festival, as a board member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
Killaloe’s St Flannan’s Cathedral will be the venue for the main recitals, which take place on Friday and Saturday at 8pm and on Sunday at 3pm.
Speaking about the recitals, Mr Horgan hopes the festival will return as a staple on the Killaloe events calendar.
“It hasn’t been there for ten years. It moved out of Killaloe and went to Limerick and it was there for a while and it sort of died away then. So this is a revival but on a slightly smaller scale to start with. We hope it will run every year and grow and go back to being a big festival again but we’re starting off this year with three beautiful recitals. The lead musician is Joachim Roewer who is German but has been living in Killaloe for the last number of years. He is the lead viola player with the Irish Chamber Orchestra,” he said.
Under the artistic director of Roewer, a host of internationally recognised musicians will perform works of well known Viennese composers, as well as modern classical works from the same area.
“The theme is the Viennese phenomenon. There are three schools of Viennese music. the first is Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert of the early 1800s. then there’s the early 20th century with composers like Webern, and then there’s the contemporary schools who are writing there now. There is one work we will have by a living composer called Schwertsik but it is a fun piece. It’s called Moebelmusik which translates as furniture music. The works are very accessible and anyone who would like Andre Rieu would like this as well. We are finishing with Schubert’s Trout Quintet so everyone knows that song,” Mr Horgan added.
Opening the festival is a Schumann flute quartet, played by Charlotte Bletton, who is travelling from Paris to perform, while Michael McHale, an up and coming Irish pianist from Belfast, will also perform at the festival. William Butt, professor of cello with the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin will also attend.
Although he is a self-confessed “failed player” Mr Horgan said he is an avid listener and his passion for classical music is as strong as a coffee drinker’s need for their daily coffee fix.
“I’ve enjoyed a lifelong fascination with classical music from the time I was very young. I have been listening to music on records and tapes and CDs and going to concerts from the time I was a small schoolboy,” he said.
It was after gaining experience working on the board of the West Cork Music Festival that he thought about rejuvenating the Killaloe Chamber Music Festival.
Despite living in Clarecastle, Mr Horgan relished the thought of holding the festival in its original setting and has acknowledged the generosity of the local Church of Ireland, who facilitated the use of St Flannan’s Cathedral for the recitals.
“The beautiful cathedral is a superb venue for music and Killaloe is of a size where people keep bumping into each other and it gives an opportunity to meet the musicians, to meet friends and it creates a great atmosphere so that makes it an ideal place. I think one of the problems of having it in a large city like Limerick or Dublin is that it gets lost whereas everyone in Killaloe will know there’s a music festival on this weekend,” he said.
On Friday there will be performances of The Schumann Quartet with Charlotte Bletton (flute); Beethoven’s String Quartet in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2; Webern’s Langsamer Satz from String Quartet in C minor; Webern’s Five movements for String Quartet, Op 5 and Mozart’s Flute Quartet D major KV285.
On Saturday Michael McHale (piano), Charlotte Bletton (flute), Katherine Hunka, Mia Cooper, Diane Daly, Anna Cashel (violins), Joachim Roewer (viola), William Butt (cello) and Malachy Robinson (bass) will perform Schubert’s Introduction and Variations op.160 for Flute and Piano Schwertsik: Moebelmusik op.68; Kreisler’s Caprice Viennoise, Syncopation, Liebesleid, Liebesfreud; Beethoven’s Duet with two obligato eyeglasses and Schubert’s Impromptus for Piano Solo op.90. Both concerts will be held at 8pm.
On Sunday at 3pm the same performers will play Spohr’s Double Quartet No.1 D minor op and Schubert’s Piano Quintet D667 A Major The Trout.
Tickets are available for each event at the door, but advance booking is also facilitated by the University Concert Hall Box Office on 061 331549.

 

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