ALISON BALSOM (TRUMPET), ICO/GÉRARD KORSTEN

RDS, Dublin Sat 8pm 15-25 0818-719300; CIT Cork School of Music, Cork Sun 8pm 15-25 061-331549

HILLIARD ENSEMBLE

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dundalk Thurs 8pm 15 01-8721122

Before the opening of the National Concert Hall in 1981, the concert hall of the RDS was one of the major music venues in Dublin. The Irish Chamber Orchestra and the RDS are making a concerted effort to attract musical attention away from the city centre again. The ICO will give all the concerts of its new season at the RDS, where the book-lined auditorium has had its acoustic spruced up in preparation.

The first try-out of the new arrangement is on Saturday, when ace trumpeter Alison Balsom (left) will play concertos by Haydn and Hummel. The programme, which is conducted by Gérard Korsten, opens with Mozart’s Impresario Overture and ends with Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony.

There’s a repeat of the concert in Cork on Sunday. But the Cork leg of the orchestra’s 2009-10 season is currently not secure beyond December’s performances of Messiah. The orchestra – and audiences in Cork – will have to await news of the ICO’s 2010 Arts Council grant before it will be known if and how Cork will feature in the second half of the season.

Later in the week, the enterprising Louth Contemporary Music Society brings leading vocal group the Hilliard Ensemble to Dundalk for a programme called Arkhangelos, which will feature music by James MacMillan, Arvo Pärt, Alexander Raskatov, Ivan Moody and Jonathan Wild, as well as arrangements by the Armenian composer Komitas.