Elina Garanca at the NCH review: A pleasure from beginning to endThe Latvian mezzo-soprano, with her husband on the podium, was effortlessly attractive in her self-assurance and ownership of her surroundingsMon Mar 11 2024 - 10:14
Sinéad Campbell Wallace on Salome: ‘It’s just an onslaught. You literally can feel it on your skin and in your body’The soprano is playing the title part – ‘a beast of a role’ – in Richard Strauss’s 1905 opera, based on the Oscar Wilde play, for Irish National OperaSat Mar 09 2024 - 05:15
Migrations weekend at the National Concert Hall: Five string quartets, one five-star performance and some puzzling decisionsReview: The Belcea, Carducci, Solas, Pavel Haas and Modigliani Quartets played works by Jonathan Dove, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Julian Anderson, among othersTue Feb 27 2024 - 09:51
Classical review: Finghin Collins a tower of strength in Killian Farrell’s unusual, stimulating NSO concertShow’s Irish half includes music by Ina Boyle and Charles Villiers StanfordMon Feb 19 2024 - 10:27
Ann Murray Gala Concert review: No name-dropping here as stellar singer’s life and work take centre stageMezzo-soprano was epitome of modesty as she chatted amiably and openlyWed Jan 31 2024 - 14:57
Ann Murray: ‘If I’d had my time again, I would have stayed in Ireland. That’s one of my biggest regrets’The London-based mezzo-soprano has built a stellar opera career abroad. This week the National Concert Hall is honouring her with a lifetime-achievement awardMon Jan 29 2024 - 05:00
Midwinter Festival Fauré - Both stimulating and wearying The composer’s work often had an aloofness about it, and some of these performances lacked a light touchMon Jan 22 2024 - 16:23
Gabriela Montero: ‘As a Latin American I really feel as though the Irish are the Latins of the north’The Venezuelan pianist on the mysterious art of improvisation and why she remains outspoken about the political situation in her home countryMon Jan 22 2024 - 05:15
‘Most conductors today don’t really have technique. They also don’t believe there is such a thing’Paavo Järvi is from a family of conductors – but a strong technical schooling is still vital before anybody takes to the podium, he saysTue Dec 05 2023 - 05:15
Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason on their musical family: You could always go outside if you wanted some peaceThe cellist, who followed his BBC Young Musician win by playing at Meghan and Harry’s wedding, and his pianist sister are making their Irish debut as a duoSat Nov 11 2023 - 05:15
La Ciociara review: The audience roars its approval as the curtain falls on this seat-shiftingly vivid operaWexford Festival Opera 2023: If you want to hear what a Puccini of the 21st century might have sounded like, this is as good a starting point as anyFri Oct 27 2023 - 14:29
L’Aube Rouge review: One of those unfortunate works in which problems stand out more clearly than strengthsWexford Festival Opera 2023: Strong singing and the orchestra playing a blinder can’t mask the disjointednessThu Oct 26 2023 - 15:48
Zoraida di Granata review: This early Donizetti, performed in its original form for the first time, is quite an engaging rideWexford Festival Opera 2023: An impressively unwavering Claudia Boyle sings the title role, with Matteo Mezzaro as Abenamet and Konu Kim as AlmuzirWed Oct 25 2023 - 14:37
Richard Goode at NCH: A beautiful recital communicated like intimate confidences between close friendsRenowned pianist Richard Goode finally made it to the NCH stage for a recital to rememberTue Oct 24 2023 - 16:45
Irish soprano Claudia Boyle on a ‘platform to celebrate what a woman is, what a woman can be’Wexford Festival Opera 2023: The singers Claudia Boyle, Andreea Soare and Na’ama Goldman on this year’s theme of Women and WarTue Oct 10 2023 - 05:15
Violinist and conductor Fabio Biondi: ‘In The Four Seasons you feel love, disappointment, desperation, happiness’The Europa Galante founder, who is bringing his baroque orchestra to Ireland next week, on the concert’s centrepieceSun Oct 08 2023 - 05:10
Matthew McDonald and NSO/Jaime Martín review: The orchestra is in better form than it has been for years Playing Gerald Barry’s From the Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s principal double bassist is heroic in the face of impossible oddsSun Oct 01 2023 - 13:41
RIAM’s inaugural Wigmore Hall Festival has drawn to a close. How did the new venue perform?Review: The academy’s 300-seat Whyte Recital Hall could be a boon for the kind of events now held in the National Concert Hall’s John Field RoomFri Sept 29 2023 - 14:50
Éna Brennan on her first opera: ‘I’m going back to my lovely existential dread that I seem to put into all my work’The violinist and composer worked with director David Pountney and Portuguese visual artist Hugo Canoilas for a 20-minute piece with ‘its own identity, its own world and its own visual experience’Tue Sept 26 2023 - 05:00
Yevgeny Sudbin: ‘As soon as I sit down, start playing, start trying things, I find the right texture’The Russia-born British pianist is performing three concerts at New Ross Piano Festival this weekend. He talks about the music he’ll be playingTue Sept 19 2023 - 05:00
Ailís Ní Ríain: The Last Time I Died - Independent, exploratory and quirkyThe title of this album of compositions for toy piano refers to the composer’s sixth year of sobrietyFri Sept 15 2023 - 05:00
András Keller: ‘These were people with young families. Their electricity was switched off. There was no money’The conductor has had to get his orchestra, the Concerto Budapest Symphony, through punishing times. It’s just one of the unexpected twists in his lifeThu Sept 14 2023 - 05:15
‘My schedule is Tosca, Tosca, Tosca, Aida, Tosca, Tosca’: Svetlana Kasyan on her signature roleThe Bolshoi-trained singer is about to make her Irish debut, starring as Puccini’s character at the Grand Opera House in BelfastThu Sept 07 2023 - 05:15
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
