Brendan returns home

GUITARIST and composer Brendan Walsh returns home from Switzerland for a once-off solo guitar recital at St Columba’s Church in Ennis on November 11 at 8pm.
The Sixmilebridge musician has been living in Switzerland for the past four years, but returns regularly to play at the Shannonside Winter Music weekend in Sixmilebridge, which is run by his father, Brendan snr.
This is the first time in a number of years he will play a solo show and it follows a very successful performance with the Diversus Guitar Group 
Speaking to The Clare Champion, Brendan said, “This concert for me is very much about playing at home. It has been a couple of years since I’ve done a solo guitar recital at home. I’ve played at my father’s Shannonside Winter Music Weekend, but I am nearly always collaborating with other musicians, so it’s been a long time doing something on my own here”.
Brendan’s solo concert is a celebration of original guitar music with some pieces following a South American style of guitar playing, while others will draw from European influences, from Venezuelan waltzes to classical sonatas.
Brendan will feature four composers – Spanish composer Fernando Sor, Austrian composer Johann Kasper Mertz, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos and Venezuelan composer Antonio Lauro.
“The music itself ranges from the lyrical to the virtuosic. I want it to be really very special concert for a Clare audience. I’m not looking to throw things at the audience that they won’t like, this music is very easy to get and is accessible. People who have an open mind about music will enjoy this,” Brendan explained.
Brendan has been working as a composer for the last couple of years and holds an International BA Music degree from NUI Maynooth and the Lemmensinstitute, Leuven, Belgium. He also undertook two separate Masters in Music Performance at Dublin Institute of Technology and at the Hochschule Luzern – Musik, Switzerland where he also completed a specialised certificate in advanced studies.
He is a two time All-Ireland Feis Ceoil competition winner and has played support to Irish artists such as Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and Luka Bloom. He has performed for President Mary McAleese and for Switzerland’s leading political figures in the Bundeshaus in Bern.
As a composer, he premiered his first guitar concerto in February 2007 at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and his compositional output ranges from solo to orchestral.
In 2003 he founded and still directs the Diversus Guitar Ensemble comprising approximately 20 guitarists from around the world, for which he has composed and arranged extensively.
Furthering this love of chamber music he plays alongside Zoe Conway and Ailbhe McDonagh in the Trio Elatha and also has an active voice and guitar duo with Swiss soprano Christina Sutter.
He is founder of the Lucerne Guitar Concerts series and is currently president of Fokus Gitarre, a Swiss-based music association that promotes the underplayed guitar repertoire. With this organisation he is hoping to steer away from the emphasis on playing for competition and reverting back to playing intimate concerts, as is the classical guitar tradition.
Tickets for the Ennis event are available on the door or can be booked by calling 086 8464509 and further information is also available by contacting this number.