When Luisa MacConville and her husband came to Sligo from Dublin 10 years ago, she missed being able to attend classical concerts regularly.
Italian-born, she had always loved music, though her enthusiasm for opera only came later, in Ireland, and she is a regular visitor to the Wexford Opera Festival. In Dublin, she attended the National Concert Hall weekly.
There were occasional concerts in Sligo, and some specialised music festivals throughout the year, but these required a heavy time commitment and often appealed to a specific audience. Nevertheless, she never intended to set up a music association, and Con Brio, the Sligo Music Association she founded and co-ordinates, came about almost by accident.
"A violinist called Nicola Cleary came here in 1997 and played with a quartet in front of 25 people," she said. "It was in the Yeats building and was a wonderful experience. I said to her, `I'll get you back with a full audience'. "I felt there was a need in Sligo for an association that would organise such concerts. I had had no intention of continuing. But I organised two other events, a lecture on opera by John Allen and a concert with Geraldine O'Grady and Veronica McSweeney."
The association developed with the help of sponsorship from the local business community and support from the Yeats Society. "Jim Meehan, a local business consultant, gave me the first £50 and then sponsored the first concert of the 1999-2000 season." Other concerts followed, mainly in the Yeats building, but also in the business innovation centre in the Institute of Technology.
She is now on target to have monthly musical events in Sligo, and the programme for the 2000-2001 season will be announced at an event on August 15th at which the Vogler Quartet will play.
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