Mary Dullea, Artistic Director of the Chamber Music on Valentia festival, previews this year's event, which kicks off on August 12th...
Nestled on the beautiful Valentia Island, Co. Kerry, the annual Chamber Music on Valentia Festival is Europe's most westerly chamber music festival.
Now in its 8th year, we present Irish and international artists throughout Valentia Island in a programme that resonates thematically with this outward-looking place, connecting performers and audience with inspirational performances in authentic settings ranging from the Lighthouse and Glanleam House to family homes.
The 2021 Festival continues to deliver carefully curated programmes, installations, outreach and engagement events, plus celebrate Irish composers for national and international audiences, with a blend of specially created and recorded concerts with events online and on Valentia.
Jonathan Nangle is the featured composer, and the diverse fields his work explores is exemplified here including the newly commissioned installation One Small Precise Poetic Spiralling Mixture and a performance of Snáth, his 2019 song cycle on Irish language texts.
The online festival concerts begin on 12th August with the exceptional Turkish pianist Gülsin Onay in a programme of Chopin, the composer she is closely identified with, as well as works by Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann.
13th August sees two concerts of music mainly by Irish composers, filmed on location on Valentia. Featuring soprano Daire Halpin, violinist Darragh Morgan (Fidelio Trio) Michelle Fleming and Eoin Schmidt-Martin (Carducci Quartet), cellist Adrian Mantu (ConTempo Quartet) and pianist Mary Dullea; the first programme shows off Charles Villiers Stanford's youthful Piano Quartet No. 1 in F major, Ernest J. Moeran’s Songs from County Kerry (the patron composer of the festival) and Jonathan Nangle’s Snáth. The late-night concert includes fascinating soundworlds in world premieres by Raymond Deane and Seán Ó Dálaigh, Errollyn Wallen’s gripping Music for Tigers plus music by Jonathan Nangle and Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne.
14th August sees these chamber musicians combine for a transformative plugged-in evening of music inspired by travels on earth and in the skies, with Steve Reich’s mesmeric Different Trains and Linda Buckley’s Exploding Stars.
The closing concert on 15th August, In the Shadow of St. Marks, features the wonderful European Union Chamber Orchestra presenting music from or influenced by Venice, filmed in the stunning Chapel at Royal Holloway, University of London, in a vivacious programme of Vivaldi, Mozart, Maddalena Laura Lombardini and the Dublin based Geminiani.
The opening event on 12th August is a specially commissioned digital Installation by Kerry-based film maker Marcella O'Connor, responding to a submissions call placing the island's unique relationship with land, sea and sky at the forefront.
On Valentia Live series of events sees outdoor performances including a family concert in the grounds of the Lighthouse, string duos by Bartok, Berio, Bryars and Mozart performed by violinists Keith Pascoe (Vanbrugh) and Darragh Morgan, plus our Meet the Composer interview with Jonathan Nangle.
The Chamber Music on Valentia festival runs from 12th - 15th August - find out more here.
