Irish Times writers review a selection of events.
Connolly, Palestrina Choir/Murphy
St Michael's, Dún Laoghaire
Andrew Johnstone
The country's longest-running annual season of organ recitals has a new artistic director, only its third in 34 years. David Connolly, who was appointed director of music at St Michael's Church in September 2006, looks set to continue the traditions of his two predecessors at the Dún Laoghaire series, Gerard Gillen and Anne Leahy. As well as maintaining the usual mix of high-calibre Irish and international artists, and retaining the familiar pocket programme-book, he clearly enjoys the time-honoured friendly chat to the audience.
Connolly began the thoughtfully structured programme with Bach's Pièce d'Orgue, BWV 572, making time for some elastic turns of phrase in the opening Très vitement, putting a percussive edge on the chording of the central Gravement, and dealing gingerly with the concluding flurry of passagework that's said by some to symbolise the rushing of the Holy Spirit.
He developed this theme with a partita by Flor Peeters on Veni Creator Spiritus (Op 75 No 6), sandwiched between two preludes by Buxtehude on Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott (BuxWV 199 and 200). Here, touch and tone colour were in sympathy with the organ's vividly neo-classical character. Picking up the Pentecostal thread, the Palestrina Choir was in fine fettle for the plainchant Veni Creator Spiritus (sung in brisk procession) and two motets - Palestrina's Loquebantur variis linguis and Victoria's Dum complerentur.
Blánaid Murphy's two-in-a-bar direction brought a feeling of relaxed efficiency to the polyphony, where her practised squad of boys' voices ably supplied two or three of the parts. With a brave accompaniment from organist David Grealy, there were assured solo contributions from Christopher Graham and Louis Costello in Britten's Missa Brevis Op 63, and from Louis Mahon in a bright new suite of sacred songs by Colin Mawby, Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord.
James, Collins
Hugh Lane gallery, Dublin
Michael Dungan
Welsh mezzo-soprano and polyglot Buddug Verona James traversed 10 languages during her delightful one-hour sampling of folk songs arranged by classical and contemporary composers.
She began in her native tongue, including a delicate, almost baroque-style aria setting of David of the White Rock by Haydn, one of 60 he did for Scottish publisher George Thomson. Also in Welsh was the first of three fishing-themed songs, Tidy my bed, in a cold, affecting arrangement by Pwyll ap Sion, in which a lad lies that he was out fishing when in fact he was being rejected by his love. James MacMillan creates a strong sense of a northern lake's tranquillity and depth in his programmatic setting of Ballad which Jones gave in Scots. The last fishing song - the jolly O the bonny fisher-lad - was one of two settings by Phyllis Tate (1911-1987) who had been a neighbour of Jones's Guildhall singing teacher Noelle Barker.
The second song, and the best of three Irish songs on the programme, was Tate's haunting arrangement of The Lake of Coolfin, never published and only in Jones's repertoire because Tate popped in one day to run it by Barker.
Moving beyond Britain and Ireland, Jones sang the unaccompanied Gwenchlan's prophecy from Brittany, settings of Italian and German songs by Donizetti and Brahms, respectively, and Spanish ones by Lorca and de Falla. Her voice has a clear, intimate quality which she adapted - without compromising its distinctiveness - according to content, this aided by subtle hints of her skills from the operatic stage. In this way, Jones made every song in every style her own.
Pianist Dearbhla Collins could afford no such liberties, gamely and persuasively swinging between styles as varied as a sonata-like introduction in Haydn to the "celtic twilight" of Herbert Hughes to Ravel in dark, middle-eastern mood in his Hebrew setting Kaddish, to the orchestral resonance she conjured in the well-known La Delaissado from Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne.
Billy Talent
Ambassador, Dublin
Tony Clayton-Lea
Perseverance definitely pays off - Billy Talent have been around in one shape or form since 1993. Originally known as Pezz, and originating from Mississauga, Ontario, the four-piece - vocalist Ben Kowalewicz, guitarist Ian D'Sa, bassist Jonathan Gallant and drummer Aaron Solowoniuk - stuck to their punk-rock guns, preferring to gain minimum mainstream acceptance for their committed, spunky blend of the Clash and Rage Against the Machine.
Stubbornness, it would seem, has paid multiple dividends, as the band are now on an upward swing to broader cult acceptance; this is their second show in Dublin in just over six months, and a ramp-up in attendance numbers from their previous outing in November last at the Temple Bar Music Centre.
If the trappings are fairly obvious - fast, furious songs sung at breakneck speed - then the approach is less so, and if you think Canadian punk rock starts and ends with Sum 41 or Avril Lavigne, then not only are you on the wrong page of the hymn sheet, brother, but you're in a different church.
The clincher is two-fold; the innate sense of melody thrusts Billy Talent's songs into a different league - no matter how much guitar/bass/drum noise the band make there are always discernible, distinctive melody lines. This, and lead singer Kowalewicz's occasional over-earnest entreaties to the predominantly teenage audience (he's very big on love and peace, which is fair enough) mark the band out as anything other than cliched also-rans.
Yet there's a mile or two to go before they gain entrance to the executive locker room; the very basic stage set and backdrop highlight either budgetary restrictions, a lack of imagination or a back-to-basics design aesthetic. Good and tough though they are, the songs could certainly benefit from complementary, associative and inventive visuals. Amateur hour is over, guys - Billy Talent deserve to join the professionals.
