Niall Doyle is an intriguing choice for the Arts Council’s head of musicDoyle comes to the job as someone who knows how bruising the council can be to clientsWed Mar 25 2015 - 10:00
Chiaroscuro Quartet: Mozart and Mendelssohn | Album ReviewMozart: String Quartet in D minor K421; Mendelssohn: Quartet in A minor Op 13Chiaroscuro QuartetAparté AP 0924Sun Mar 22 2015 - 17:00
Classical Music: The odd imbalance of ‘Ten Thousand Miles Away’, and the place of period performanceThe Royal Irish Academy of Music’s collaborative concert was strong on Irish writers but weak on our composersWed Mar 18 2015 - 01:00
What? . . . Wow: not much new about David Lang’s festival of minimalismWhy this year’s festival turned to the US for a curator is hard to fathomWed Mar 11 2015 - 01:00
Scottish Chamber Orchestra Wind Soloists: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Divertimenti | Album ReviewMozart: Serenade in E flat K375; Divertimentos K240, K252, K253, K270Wed Mar 04 2015 - 19:00
Dukas: L’apprenti sorcier; La Péri; Symphony in C minorRTÉ NSO/Jean-Luc Tingaud | Album ReviewFri Feb 27 2015 - 09:44
John Wilson: ‘One day the conductor didn’t show up, so I just did it’The principal conductor of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra fell in love with music in his high chair. He taught himself piano at a young age and formed a symphony orchestra at 16 before falling into the ‘terrifying business’ of conductingThu Feb 26 2015 - 06:00
Bizjak Piano Duo: Martinu, Poulenc, Shostakovich, Stravinsky – Stuttgarter Philharmoniker Radoslaw Szulc | Album reviewFri Feb 20 2015 - 07:44
Piano versus violin: the eternal battle to be the dominant playerA talk by Keith Pascoe in the NCH Insights series focused on the changing relationship between the two instrumentsWed Feb 18 2015 - 09:00
John Buckley’s enduring boyish enthusiasm for scintillating soundsThe composer compiles a classic Horizons programme at the NCH; and NI Opera bares all, with mixed resultsWed Feb 11 2015 - 01:00
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Schumann: Fantasy in C Op 17 | Album ReviewFri Feb 06 2015 - 00:44
A fantastic early history of the Irish avant-gardeWhat, you haven’t heard of Zaftig Giolla or the Guinness Dadaists? Let Jennifer Walshe enlighten youWed Feb 04 2015 - 01:00
Les Arts Florissants/William Christie: Handel – Music for Queen Caroline | Album reviewFri Jan 30 2015 - 00:44
Benjamin Grosvenor treats the National Concert Hall to a tour de forceThe pianist, just 22, delivers an unconventional programme with awe-inspiring confidenceWed Jan 28 2015 - 10:00
Alexander Raskatov: Piano Concerto (Night Butterflies); Stravinsky: Rite of Spring | Album ReviewFri Jan 23 2015 - 00:44
An incurable romantic: who is the Max Bruch of the 21st century?The German composer clung to the same style throughout his career – do any modern counterparts keep the faith?Wed Jan 21 2015 - 01:00
Plenty to celebrate on the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir’s 30th birthdayThe choir has to compete with the Fleischmann, but it’s living up to the vision behind its foundationWed Jan 14 2015 - 10:00
Some new year resolutions the NCH and RTÉ should considerThe NCH needs to give greater prominence to the music in its promotion and RTÉ needs to be braver about new musicWed Jan 07 2015 - 01:00
Michael Dervan’s cultural highs and lows of 2014Richard Goode at the KBC Great Music in Irish Houses festivalSat Dec 27 2014 - 01:00
Acoustic adventures at four Irish venues ranging from the muffled to the magicalAt four recent performances given in spaces not designed for music, the contrasting fortunes were profoundWed Dec 17 2014 - 01:00
Courtney Lewis’s code of conduct for the RTÉ National Symphony OrchestraGetting the best out of an orchestra is a challenge, but the young Belfast conductor proves he can handle it with performances of Prokofiev, Borodin and ShostakovichWed Dec 10 2014 - 13:00
Glyndebourne at the Bord Gáis Energy TheatreOne of Europe’s finest outdoor opera companies comes indoors for a brief tour in Dublin with ‘La traviata’Sun Dec 07 2014 - 09:00
Review: La traviataGlyndebourne returns with a terrific production of Verdi’s classicThu Dec 04 2014 - 14:53
Vanbrugh Quartet sound liberated in their post-RTÉ existenceConTempo Quartet, on the other hand, were to take over as RTÉ’s string quartet in Cork in April, but things have been rather mutedWed Dec 03 2014 - 01:00
When it comes to music performance, talk isn’t cheap, it’s invaluableProgrammes are invaluable for concert-goers, and a little discussion from performers rarely does any harmWed Nov 26 2014 - 10:00
Labour of love sees Opera Theatre Company back on the road againOTC says it was ‘the victim of political decisions’ but it’s now back on the road with bigger ambitions than everThu Nov 20 2014 - 10:00
Recording has turned the musical experience on its headThe Emerson Quartet offer a reminder of the advantages of the live performance over the recordingWed Nov 19 2014 - 10:00
Two of Ireland’s younger sopranos would be a casting director’s dreamIf only Ireland had such a thing as a national opera company to utilise the abilities of Anna Devin and Jennifer DavisWed Nov 12 2014 - 01:00
Leonard Elschenbroich - Prokofiev: Cello Sonata; Kabalevsky: Cello Concerto No 2; shorter piecesFri Nov 07 2014 - 02:03
RTÉ’s Halloween menu is presented in the wrong orderThe skill of the players is undermined by the concert’s unconventional structureWed Nov 05 2014 - 01:00
John Ruddock: ‘The impresario you seldom find’Whether promoting at home or recruiting abroad, John Ruddock’s effect on Irish music was profoundSat Nov 01 2014 - 01:00
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique/John Eliot Gardiner: Beethoven Symphonies 2 & 8Thu Oct 30 2014 - 21:18
Wexford Opera review: Silent NightKevin Puts’s opera gets an impassioned performance in its European premiereWed Oct 29 2014 - 17:40
Juan Diego Flórez, it’s good to have you backThe downside to seeing the tenor’s NCH appearance was that I missed an apparently great Wexford productionWed Oct 29 2014 - 01:00
Wexford Festival Opera Review: Don BucefaloToo much commotion and too many gags sometimes smother the froth of the musicMon Oct 27 2014 - 01:00
Wexford Festival Opera review: SaloméA new production that is inert and lacklustreMon Oct 27 2014 - 01:00
Does the Budget mark the end of austerity? Not for the artsNone of the Budget’s so-called feelgood factor reached the arts, which received no boost in fundingWed Oct 22 2014 - 01:00
‘Optimism in the face of brutality’: a great opera about the Great WarThe Wexford-bound Silent Night explores the horror of war through the prism of the unofficial Christmas Eve truce of 1914. Its composer and librettist talk about the making of a Pulitzer Prize winnerTue Oct 21 2014 - 01:00
