Reviews: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
Benjamin Britten wrote his Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Aldeburgh Festival of 1960. It was presented in the town’s Jubilee Hall, then newly rebuilt and extended. The hall’s capacity was – and still...
View ArticleReviews: Cashell, Johnston, OSC/Daniel – NCH, Dublin
Mendelssohn – Hebrides Overture. Beethoven – Piano Concerto No 2. John Tavener – The Protecting Veil. Sophie Cashell, the young Irish pianist who won last year’s BBC2 Classical Star contest, joined the...
View ArticleReviews: Cooney, RTÉ NSO/ Altschuler – NCH, Dublin
Smetana – Vltava. Dvorák – Violin Concerto. Tchaikovsky – Symphony No 6. A packed house for this concert by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra attested to the enduring appeal of a mainstream...
View ArticleReviews: IBO/Huggett – St Ann’s Church, Dublin
Taking an evening out from its annual festival at Ardee, the Irish Baroque Orchestra came to Dublin with a selection from its two festival concerts. Its programme, Baroque A-Z, yielded a musical...
View ArticleReviews: Tony Christie – Vicar Street, Dublin
He croons more credibly than most, his phrasing is impeccable and his occasional dance routines impinge minimally on his big band sound. Tony Christie is engaged in the kind of reincarnation that...
View ArticleReviews: Ensemble Scratch the Surface – Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Scratch the Surface is a contemporary music ensemble founded in 2006. The programming for its recent Music Network tour was based on the premise that the old boundaries which once designated sounds as...
View ArticleReviews: Iolanthe – NCH, Dublin
In Dublin, and perhaps elsewhere, nobody produces the Gilbert and Sullivan canon as splendidly as the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society. A sweeping endorsement, of course, but the evidence is to...
View ArticleReviews: Lay Me Down Softly – Peacock Theatre, Dublin
In the way of most boxing stories, Billy Roche’s new play features strutting contenders, washed-up coaches and injured kids with something to prove. Set in the early 1960s, but located less...
View ArticleReviews: Peter Planyavsky (organ) – St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin
This year’s biennial George Hewson Memorial Recital marked a long-awaited return to Ireland by Peter Planyavsky, professor of organ and improvisation at Vienna’s University for Music and Drama. The...
View ArticleReview: An Equal Stillness
My review of Francesca Kay’s An Equal Stillness, which appears in today’s Irish Times.
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