Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss: A thoughtful, extraordinarily detailed performance of Schubert piano duets Whyte Recital Hall, the Royal Irish Academy of Music’s new venue, has a puzzling acoustic on its opening nightWed Sept 06 2023 - 14:04
Stephen Hough: ‘So many concert halls are built and don’t sound good, and they’ve had millions spent on them’The mesmerising English pianist, who plays this month at Dublin’s new Whyte Recital Hall, on the importance of a venueSat Sept 02 2023 - 05:15
John Gilhooly: ‘I stand in the foyer every night. You learn a lot by just chatting to your public’The Irishman who runs Wigmore Hall, one of the world’s great concert venues, is bringing a roster of classical stars to Dublin’s new recital hallTue Aug 22 2023 - 05:15
Barry Douglas review: When he gets the bit between his teeth he’s one of the most exciting pianists aroundKilkenny Arts Festival 2023: There was a sense of a raw force of nature about Douglas’s recital at St Canice’s Cathedral on MondayTue Aug 15 2023 - 13:08
Carducci String Quartet: Kilkenny Arts Festival audience clearly appreciates this passionate, emotionally engaged playingKilkenny Arts Festival 2023: In a chalk-and-cheese programme, the players’ fondness for fullness and heartiness of tone is a little too strongly in evidenceSun Aug 13 2023 - 19:37
Camerata Kilkenny: Gorgeous tones and mesmerising command in a Bach-dominated programmeKilkenny Arts Festival 2023: The group’s harpsichordist, Malcolm Proud, featured as a young musician at the first festival, back in 1974Sat Aug 12 2023 - 19:00
‘The only way out is a divorce!’: Carducci String Quartet on being married to music and each otherKilkenny Arts Festival 2023: Couples might find it hard to work and live together. The two pairs of Carducci musicians cannot imagine it any other wayWed Aug 09 2023 - 05:15
West Cork Chamber Music Festival: women’s work and a remarkable BeethovenThis year’s programme in Bantry focused on women composers, and plans were also revealed for a new venue to house the town’s three festivalsTue Jul 04 2023 - 11:00
‘It was clear I wanted to play first violin. When you are leader you can really create energy’West Cork Chamber Music Festival: What’s the difference between playing first and second violin in a string quartet? Two musicians explainThu Jun 22 2023 - 05:18
Folks’ Music: Terry Riley would love this trad take on In C every bit as much as the audience didLouth Contemporary Music Society’s engaging weekend festival also featured the Esposito Quartet, Sigma Project and Explore EnsembleMon Jun 19 2023 - 12:52
Laurence Crane: ‘I try to find new ways of making form and structure’The English composer’s String Quartet No 2, which is about to be premiered in Ireland, turns familiar material into unusual shapesMon Jun 12 2023 - 05:00
‘It was a bit of a shock’: A singer loses her voice. How can a composer respond?Ian Wilson’s Voces Amissae explores voicelessness, whether medical, psychological or social – including that of its performer Nora FischerThu Jun 08 2023 - 05:00
Garrett Sholdice: The Blue Light – Meditative focus and a sense of ritualComposer marks turning 40 with sensitively performed album of piano and chamber musicFri Jun 02 2023 - 04:45
‘The whole piece is a pressure cooker’: Verdi’s Macbeth comes to Blackwater Valley OperaKillian Farrell returns to Ireland to conduct a show with music of sublime profundity despite an atmosphere that’s ‘unrelentingly dark’Sat May 20 2023 - 05:00
La Serenissima/Adrian Chandler: An Englishman Abroad – An intriguing programme of performancesAn intriguing programme of compositions by Nicola Matteis the YoungerFri May 19 2023 - 05:00
‘I remember John O’Conor saying that when he comes off the stage he’s only earned half his fee’Pianist Michael McHale has been guided by a series of noted Irish teachers – and their welcome advice has been about more than techniqueWed May 17 2023 - 05:00
Chiaroscuro Quartet: Haydn Op 33 | 1-3 – Fresh, witty playing that can take your breath away These sometimes-startling new recordings of the first three of Joseph Haydn’s string quartets are in line with the composer’s own preferencesFri May 05 2023 - 05:00
Schoenberg String Trio; Regamey Quintet – Finely graded performances pack a punchAn album of finely graded performances connecting the famous Schoenberg and the little-known composer Constantin RegameyFri Apr 21 2023 - 05:00
Ann Cleare: ‘We’re still dealing with the trauma of the Catholic Church, trying to understand how we can centre our lives’Ann Cleare’s new composition, Midhe, draws inspiration from the ancient and powerful province that once stood at Ireland’s heartTue Apr 18 2023 - 05:45
Tár is the classical music equivalent of a film about Ireland that wallows in clichesTodd Field’s divisive feature seems unaware of the caricatures it containsSun Apr 16 2023 - 05:00
Music Current 2023: ‘I like improvising, because it’s the most natural way for me to be a musician’Fergal Dowling, Izumi Kimura, Francis Heery and Natacha Diels on the appeal of this week’s Dublin festival of contemporary musicMon Apr 10 2023 - 05:45
Quatuor Diotima: Metamorphosis Ligeti – Astonishingly fresh, almost impossibly impeccable musicmakingMusic played with such zest and dynamic range that the effect is often gloriously surrealFri Apr 07 2023 - 05:06
Rachmaninov at 150: ‘These are some of the most incredible examples of artistry in performance’Four devotees talk about what the great Russian composer means to themThu Mar 30 2023 - 06:00
NSO/Gemma New: You wouldn’t run a soccer team this way. So hats off to the guest conductorThe National Symphony Orchestra churns through an extraordinary number of musicians. The New Zealand conductor rode the beast with some success on FridayMon Mar 27 2023 - 10:02
‘It takes a village to make a concert happen’: Gemma New on the art of conducting an orchestraThe New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s first woman principal conductor on music, performance and the tingle factorWed Mar 22 2023 - 05:45
Bartók: The Wooden Prince & Dance Suite — refined understatement from Cristian MăcelaruSubtlety the order of the day in Măcelaru’s adaptation of this fine pieceFri Mar 17 2023 - 05:00
Chamber Choir Ireland: Amhráin na Naomh – An unusually strained performance by an accomplished ensembleThe big piece of the evening, Eoghan Desmond’s Amra Choluim Chille, is a curate’s egg of a workThu Mar 16 2023 - 14:57
Maxim Rysanov, Nikita Boriso-Glebsky and Dóra Kokas: Welcome Irish tour by new international string trioMoments of astonishing beauty rubbed shoulders with helter-skelter passages with rough ensembleWed Mar 15 2023 - 14:47
Eoghan Desmond: ‘I struggle to write in a vacuum – I draw inspiration from what I’m working on as a singer’The upcoming premiere of the composer’s new piece, Amra Choluim Chille, may well be the largest-scale setting of a text in IrishTue Mar 14 2023 - 05:45
Finding a Voice festival: An Irish celebration of a multitude of women composersReview: Clonmel programme gives a platform to more dead composers than to living onesMon Mar 13 2023 - 13:24
The biggest Ortús Chamber Music Festival yet: Eight days, eight spaces, eight concertsThe Cork-based festival founded by Mairéad Hickey and Sinéad O’Halloran seems to have emerged stronger from the pandemicMon Mar 06 2023 - 14:41
Gráinne Mulvey: ‘It’s absolutely remarkable. These women were making huge strides’ The composer’s new work for Finding a Voice, the festival of music by women, is inspired by more than a century of activismMon Mar 06 2023 - 05:00
Anna Agafia: Nielsen & Szymanowski Violin Concertos — A passionately classical approachClarity of line is high on violinist’s agenda in approach that you might call passionately classicalFri Mar 03 2023 - 05:00
Der Rosenkavalier: ‘The story is farcical but underneath are real human issues that Strauss portrays in his music’Celine Byrne, Claudia Boyle and Paula Murrihy are in awe of the way Richard Strauss writes for the voiceSat Feb 25 2023 - 05:00
Cellist Leonard Elschenbroich: ‘I’ve been wanting to play Khachaturian all my life’The Sabre Dance is not to everyone’s taste but the German cellist is looking forward to playing Khachaturian’s workThu Feb 23 2023 - 05:00
The NSO celebrated its 75th birthday with this concert. It involved some shameful decisionsWhy did national institution mark significant anniversary without involvement of an Irish composer, soloist or conductor?Mon Feb 20 2023 - 11:24
Tamara Stefanovich: Nicolaou Etudes & Frames – Exhilarating listeningStefanovich can deliver notes as a kind of spray, a latter-day reconstruction of the virtuosic keyboard runs of the 19th centuryFri Feb 17 2023 - 05:00
‘The violin was really something very deep in myself’The musician grew up in the totalitarian state of dictator Enver Hoxha before getting a scholarship in ParisTue Feb 14 2023 - 06:00
David Bremner: Mixed Circuits – Rigorous and delicate treatment of four new worksThe west Cumbria composer has been a stalwart of the Irish music scene since 1999Fri Feb 03 2023 - 04:15
Danielle de Niese: ‘I wish the silly old opera cliches would be blasted away into smithereens’The charismatic soprano on her theatrical style, ‘erotic’ Poulenc and ditching the Viking helmetMon Jan 23 2023 - 05:00
Old Ghosts opera: ‘James Joyce’s writing is as near to music as prose can ever be’ Writer Marina Carr and composer Evangelia Rigaki explain how they approached making an opera inspired by the Penelope chapter of UlyssesSat Jan 21 2023 - 05:00
Crash Ensemble: Reactions – Sounds of the lockdown come alive in mocking commentary, naked voices and racing heart ratesAn eclectic album that explores lockdown connectionsMon Jan 16 2023 - 05:00
‘It’s like love, but musically’: Dutch soprano Lenneke Ruiten on working with Finghin CollinsThe singer partners with the Irish pianist for a varied programme at next weekend’s Midwinter Festival in GalwaySat Jan 14 2023 - 05:00
Eric Lu’s Schubert: Piano Sonatas spacious, unhurried and often exquisiteAmerican pianist is always looking for depth and shows a deep understanding of restraintFri Jan 06 2023 - 05:00
Matthew Locke: The Little Consort – Combative English composer gets stiff upper lippish treatmentViol consort Fretwork invite the ear to seek out the music’s quirkiest detailsFri Dec 16 2022 - 05:00
Teo Gheorghiu: Roots - fresh explorations of personal historiesThe pianist offers thoughtful interpretations of pieces from Romania and beyondFri Dec 02 2022 - 05:00
Thomas Zehetmair: making music beautiful even when he is not heard The new principal conductor of the Irish Chamber Orchestra discusses his art, influences and ambitionsThu Nov 24 2022 - 05:00
Finghin Collins: The bright day is done review - Atmospheric performances but lacking fluidityNew album is a personal selection of 13 piano piecesFri Nov 18 2022 - 05:00
Crash Ensemble: 25 years at the cutting edgeThe contemporary music group celebrates its birthday with a range of special events. But what makes its members tick?Wed Nov 16 2022 - 05:00
Orpha Phelan: ‘I’m very bossy, and I’m clear and organised. I can make things happen’The director faced a tight schedule when taking on the challenge of Don Pasquale for Irish National OperaMon Nov 14 2022 - 05:00
