Michael Dervanpicks some highlights in classical music over the summer
THE WEST CORK Chamber Music Festival, held in Bantry at the end of June, normally dominates the summer calendar by the sheer scale of its concert-giving. This year, however, there's a rival 60 miles up the road in Cork City. The first-ever Quiet Music Festival (June 29-July 6, www.quietmusicensemble.com) will see the debut of the Quiet Music Ensemble and incorporates the 18th Annual Deep Listening Retreat.
Composer Pauline Oliveros, who developed the philosophy behind what she calls deep listening and has established a Deep Listening Institute, will be in Cork, as will the institute's artistic director, the playwright and poet Ione. Oliveros will be involved in the retreat, and will also be appearing in concert, giving performances on accordion with live electronics. She has described deep listening as a life practice which involves "listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear, no matter what you are doing," and as a mode of "listening and responding in consideration of oneself, others and the environment". Late in his life, John Cage paid Oliveros a compliment, saying, "Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I finally know what harmony is . . . It's about the pleasure of making music."
The festival's concert schedule will include "quiet evenings" at the Triskel Arts Centre from July 2nd to 4th, with a free, day-long event, called Sssh! on July 5th. Other composers and artists to be represented include Alvin Lucier, David Toop, Mark Applebaum, Juraj Koys, and the Cork duo Quiet Club (Mick O'Shea and Danny McCarthy). One of the festival's directors, John Godfrey, cautions that quiet music is not necessarily quiet, the reference is to "the quiet of meditation, rather than the quiet of the lack of noise".
Noise has rarely been an issue down the road in Bantry, where this year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival (June 29th to July 6th, www.westcorkmusic.ie) will once again fill the library of Bantry House with the sounds of string quartets, piano trios, solos and duos of all kinds, and, at St Brendan's Church, even an 11am series of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. There may be a little more noise than usual this year, as the programme includes the First Violin Sonata of the self-declared 1920s "bad boy of music", George Antheil, who features in an all-American programme with William Bolcom and John Adams for July 4th.
This year's commission is a work for soprano (Patricia Rozario) and string quartet (the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet) by the Estonian composer, Galina Grigorjeva. Her fellow Estonian, Arvo Pärt, is also represented in an all-Estonian programme with Kuldar Sink and Erkki-Sven Tüur. Also from Eastern Europe, there are pieces by Henryk Górecki and Peteris Vasks. The line-up of performers includes festival favourites, violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Catherine Leonard, sopranos Cristina Zavalloni and Charlotte Riedijk, the Leopold String Trio, and first-time visitors the Royal and Badke string quartets, pianist Antti Siirala, violinist Vadim Gluzman, and cellist Sol Gabetta.
Earlier in June, the IIB Bank Music in Great Irish Houses festival (June 8th to 16th, www.musicgreatirishhouses.com) brings the Irish leg of Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt's current Bach pilgrimage. She's touring The Well-Tempered Clavier and the faithful can catch up with her at the National Gallery on June 11th and 13th, with 7.30pm starts each evening. The festival also brings the Irish debut of the starry French violin and cello duo of Renaud and Gautier Capuçon (Beaulieu House on June 8th at 3pm), and they're joined by pianist Nicholas Angelich at Killruddery House the following evening. The festival proper ends in Killruddery on June 14th with a monster cello ensemble and soprano Celine Byrne, and there's also a clutch of "Gallery Gathering" concerts in the National Gallery over that weekend, featuring ace Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto with a range of Irish performers.
Next up, however, is the Galway Early Music Festival on May 16th to 18th ( www.galwayearlymusic.com), where performers include Javier Sainz playing 17th-century Scottish harp music, and Morisca offering Songs and Dances of the Middle Ages. It includes the launch of CDs by Sanz and a new Harmonia Mundi CD with pieces by Tarik O'Regan, whoseScattered Rhymes gets its Irish premiere during the festival from the Orlando Consort and Cois Cladaigh.
