Cork Tues/Wed
Cork plans to do composer and former UCC Professor of Music Aloys Fleischmann (1910-1992) proud in this his centenary year.
On Tuesday (the day that would have been Fleischmann's 100th birthday) there will be a lunchtime centenary lecture by Ita Beausang. There is also an evening concert by the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet, playing Fleischmann's Piano Quintetwith Hugh Tinney, as well as two quartets by David Wallace (the current Aloys Fleischmann Composer-in-Residence at the CIT Cork School of Music). The second of the quartets, subtitled In my words, was specially commissioned for the occasion.
On Wednesday, UCC hosts a day-long seminar, A Celebration of the Life and Music of Aloys Fleischmann, at the end of which a new RTÉ lyric fm CD of orchestral works by Fleischmann will be launched.
The composer will of course feature in the upcoming Cork International Choral Festival (of which he was the founder) with performance of his Songs of the Provinces(April 28th), Poet in the Suburbs(April 30th), Illumina Oculos Meos(May 1st), and Bata na Planndála(May 2nd).
One of the more unusual of the events planned for later in the year is a performance of two pieces Fleischmann wrote for the carillon of St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh, which will be played by Adrian Gebruers on the afternoon of June 13th.
The Piano Quintetwill feature again in the opening concert of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry on June 25th. There's also a digitisation project to make the composer's scores available online, and some of the pieces being played as part of the celebrations are already available for download. See the Fleischmann centenary link on corkcitylibraries.ie.
The celebrations are not confined to Cork. Fleischmann has already featured in the RTÉ NSO’s regular concerts at the NCH, and in Belfast the BBC is presenting a free invitation concert with the Ulster Orchestra under Kenneth Montgomery on April 20th, when an Anglo Irish Connections programme will include Fleischmann’s Prelude and Dance as well as works by Delius and EJ Moeran.
