We are thrilled to announce a sensational few months ahead, with performances in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Drogheda, Kilkenny, and Carlingford; and programmes filled with everything from early music to Irish premieres of contemporary works; led by our Artistic Director Paul Hillier and a number of esteemed international guest conductors.
Following a tremendous reception to the awe-inspiring work at Kilkenny Arts Festival, Chamber Choir Ireland is delighted to announce a tour of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. This large-scale choral work, so rarely heard in its entirety, will now be brought to audiences in Cork, Drogheda, and Belfast, from 29th Sept – 1st Oct 2022, led by multi-award-winning choral conductor Paul Hillier. Read more.
This Culture Night, a quartet of Chamber Choir Ireland singers will join in on the fun with The Birds and the Bees Quartet. The singers will fill the townhall space of 1 Windmill Lane, Dublin with miniature programmes of playful early music, contemporary Irish works, and Romantic partsongs—every half hour, on the half hour, starting from 5pm on Friday 23rd September. Programmes feature works by Clément Janequin, Thomas Morley, Palestrina, Rhona Clarke, Stephen McNeff, Eoghan Desmond, George Macfarren, and Henry Bishop—full of birdsong, cheerful foresters, floral garlands, and woodland nymphs. Read more.
In October, we welcome guest conductor Zoltán Pad, Chief Conductor of the Hungarian Radio Choir, for Hungarian Rhapsody—an afternoon of Hungarian choral music, which brings the rich choral tradition of his home country to the beautiful Hugh Lane Sculpture Gallery. The programme features Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna (made famous in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey), Bartók’s Hungarian Folksongs, as well as works by Zoltán Kodály, Ferenc Liszt, and more. Hungarian Rhapsody will take place on Sunday 16th October, as part of the gallery’s free Sundays @ Noon concert series. Read more.
In November, Paul Hillier returns for another masterfully programmed concert, A Wind Full of Space, which leads us through the storm of Bernd Franke’s Rilke Madrigals, to a selection of French sacred music, centred around the ‘cool purity’ of Poulenc’s Mass in G major. Franke’s madrigals are based on the Duineser Elegien by poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the first lines of which were conceived on a stormy January day in 1912, standing on cliffs above the Adriatic Sea near the castle of Duino. A Wind Full of Space will be performed in the Pepper Canister Church, Dublin at 6:30pm on Saturday 5th November. Read more.
Later in the month, we welcome Eamonn Dougan, Associate Conductor of The Sixteen and Director of Britten Sinfonia Voices, as guest conductor for O Radiant Dawn—a programme of works by Scottish composer James MacMillan, alongside those of the Renaissance composers that have inspired his work, and the contemporary composers he has taught and mentored. This includes the Irish premiere of Kim Porter’s Pied Beauty, as well as a work by Irish composer and singer, Eoghan Desmond, who will perform in his usual position as a bass in Chamber Choir Ireland for the performance. O Radiant Dawn will be performed in the Pepper Canister Church, Dublin at 6:30pm on Saturday 26th November, and again in Carlingford Heritage Centre at 4pm on Sunday 27th November. Read more.
Rounding off the year, we will once again join forces with the Irish Baroque Orchestra for Handel’s Messiah, bringing the seasonal masterpiece to Dublin, Wexford, Drogheda, and Kilkenny from 15th-18th December. Messiah will be directed by IBO’s esteemed Artistic Director Peter Whelan, with step-out solos from Chamber Choir Ireland. Read more.
For all the latest news from Chamber Choir Ireland, sign up to our mailing list.