West Cork Chamber Music Festival
Bantry, Co Cork June 27th July 4th
The West Cork Chamber Music Festival, already the busiest and most exciting music festival in Ireland, stretches itself in all sorts of directions in 1999. The Arditti String Quartet, world leaders in their field, spear- head an extended festival platform for con- temporary music. The Quatuor Mosaiques will give Ireland its greatest concentration yet of string quartets in period instruments performances, with the added attraction of ensembles with Patrick Cohen on fortepiano. Other festival visitors include pianists Hugh Tinney and Joanna MacGregor, soprano Pa- tricia Rozario, and the French wind octet, Quatuor Paris-Bastille. Additions to the festival schedule include mid-day coffee concerts, and a concentrated series of master classes, giving up to seven events a day to choose from. (Tel: 027-61576; Fax: 027- 61485)
Dublin International Organ and Choral Festival
Dublin June 19th June 27th
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge, give the opening concert of the now triennial Dublin International Choral and Organ Festival at St Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday 19th. Organ will feature in both the NSO lunchtime (Tuesday 22nd) and evening (Fri- day 25th, 6.30pm) concerts during the week. The finals of the Dublin International Organ Competition are at Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday 26th, and the winner of the last competition, Neil Cockburn, can be heard at St Michael's, Dun Laoghaire on Sunday 27th. Other events of note include Simon Preston at the NCH (Wednesday 23rd), a performance of Haydn's Creation involving Dublin's three cathedral choirs under John Dexter (Thursday 24th) and a recital by Ewald Kooiman at the Church of the As- sumption, Tullamore, which in 1995 became the new home of a Frobenius organ formerly installed in the Vor Frue Kirke in Copenhagen (the Danish capital's Evangelical-Lutheran cathedral). (Tel: 677 3066, ext 416; Fax: 672 7279)
International Music Festival
Killaloe, Co Clare July 9th July 12th
The Irish Chamber Orchestra's festival at Killaloe continues to grow steadily. The orchestra gives a concert each under artistic director Fionnuala Hunt (Mendelssohn, Raymond Deane and Britten on Wednesday 21st) and principal guest conductor Bruno Giuranna (an all-Mozart programme including the Requiem with the National Chamber Choir on Sunday 25th). Festival guests in- clude the Brodsky String Quartet (Friday 23rd) and a programme of numbers from musicals by mezzo soprano Barbara Rearick (Saturday 24th). The festival will also feature lunchtime concerts by young flautist Emer McDonough (Thursday 22nd) and two of the orchestra's cellists, Richard Angell and Roeland Duijne (Friday 23rd). (Tel: 061 202620; Fax: 061 202617)
Kilkenny Arts Week
Kilkenny city August 14th August 21st
Kilkenny Arts Festival opens with a concert by the Belgian orchestra, I Fiamminghi. Best known for their recordings of Arvo Part (programmed on their last visit to the Belfast Festival), they've chosen works by Bartok, Haydn, Bruch and Tchaikovsky for their debut in the Republic. Other major guests will be the cello duo Patrick and Thomas Demenga (Tuesday 17th), the RTE Van- brugh Quartet with Hugh Tinney (whose programme at Duiske Abbey in Graignamanagh on Wednesday 18th includes a chamber version of Chopin's Second Piano Concerto), and a period-instruments' celebration of Bach and Vivaldi with the Kilkenny Camerata and guests (on Sunday 22nd). (Tel: 056 63663; Fax 056 51704)
Wexford Festival Opera
Wexford October 14th October 31st
In 1999 the Wexford Festival is looking eastwards. The Hungarian composer Karl Goldmark (whose Rustic Wedding Symphony has been recorded by the NSO), will be represented by his best-known opera, Die Konigin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba). Straszny Dwor (The Haunted Manor) by Poland's leading 19th-century opera composer, Stanislaw Moniuszko, will show that there was more to Polish music in the 19th century than Chopin. And Umberto Giordano, whose La cena delle beffe was heard at Wexford in 1987 and whose Andrea Chenier used to feature in the repertoire in Dublin, will be represented by Siberia, his own favourite among his operas. (Tel: 053 22144; Fax 053 24289)
