NCH, Dublin Tonight 8pm €10-€35 01-4170000
ICARUS AT THE EDGE OF TIME
NCH, Dublin Tomorrow 3pm/7pm €18-€32 01-4170000
At the turn of the century, English composer Colin Matthews wrote his short Pluto as an addition to Holst’s 1916 suite, The Planets. In 2006 the Berlin Philharmonic premiered an additional four “asteroid” commissions, Asteroid 4179 – Toutatis by Kaija Saariaho, towards Osiris by Matthias Pintscher, Ceres by Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Komarov’s Fall by Brett Dean.
Unless I’m mistaken, Pluto is still awaiting its first Irish performance. But towards Osiris was played by the RTÉ NSO earlier this year, and Ceres gets its first hearings here on Saturday.
The NSO’s “family-friendly multimedia performances” at the NCH are part of the Dublin City of Science 2012 Festival, and the main attraction on the programme is a screening of a short film of Brian Greene’s book Icarus at the Edge of Time, with narration by Louis Lovett and a live performance of the score by Philip Glass. Also on the programme is John Williams’s Star Wars Suite.
A day earlier, and under the same conductor, Matthew Coorey, the NSO plays Holst’s Planets, with New Dublin Voices providing the wordless choral contribution in Neptune. The first half of tonight’s concert is devoted to Gershwin and includes a performance of Rhapsody in Blue with pianist Philip Martin.
