Month: June 2008

National Youth Orchestra Summer Proms 2008

From MA alumna Aisling Ennis:

Belmullet to Berne! National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) presents

Summer Proms 2008

NYOI Summer Proms 2008 will bring 170 young Irish musicians from the far reaches of Belmullet on the west coast of Ireland, to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. This year NYOI welcomes back two former members Gwendolyn Masin and Clíodhna Ni Aodáin to perform as soloists with NYOI.

Two soloists? That’s right. This summer NYOI is proud to present two touring orchestras. NYOI Junior Orchestra with members aged 12 – 18, and NYOI Symphony Orchestra with members aged 18 – 24.

NYOI Junior Orchestra National tour

Under the baton of Gearóid Grant, and in the electrifying hands of soloist, Gwendolyn Masin NYOI Junior Orchestra present a musical collage of a selection of Bizet’s Carmen Suites, the sonorous tones of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Dvorak’s Symphony no.8.

Their musical adventure begins in Waterford, with a performance in Belmullet, before returning to Dublin to perform at The Helix.

Concert Date & Venue

3rd July 2008 8pm College Street Chapel, Waterford

5th July 2008 8pm Áras Inis Gluaire, Belmullet, Co Mayo

6th July 2008 8pm The Mahony Hall, The Helix, Dublin

NYOI Symphony Orchestra tour to Switzerland

This summer, NYOI Symphony Orchestra is delighted to have been specially invited to perform in a festival of youth ensembles in Switzerland to mark the 150th anniversary of the Bern Conservatory of Music. Under the baton of Atso Almila, and with soloist and former NYOI player, Clíodhna Ní Aodáin, the orchestra will unite with all other youth ensembles in the festival to perform an open-air joint programme in the centre of Bern.

Date & Venue Programme

31st July Interlaken Concert Hall Mussorgsky-Rimsky Night on a Bald Mountain

Schumann Cello Concerto

Scriabin Le Poeme de l’Extase

Pictures are available on request. For more information on the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland please see website www.nyoi.ie or Tel: (01) 6169642/6169638

For further media information contact Aisling at the NYOI office

Tel: (01) 616 9642 Email: marketing@nyoi.ie

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NYOI acknowledges with great appreciation its funders and supporters

The Department of Education and Science, TOYOTA IRELAND,

The Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland and the Musicians Benevolent Fund

NYOI in addition acknowledges the valuable promotional support of

The Irish Times and RTÉ lyric fm

World Street Performance

Kudos to the folks who organised the AIB Street Performance World Championship, held in Merrion Square over the weekend– a great event full of families who were absolutely delighted with the activities on offer, from acrobatics to vaudeville and magic. And special congratulations to ‘The English Gents’, who deservedly walked off with the Grand Prize of the weekend! Click on the image for more photos of the event…

Dougherty at Sculpture in the Parklands

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Apologies if the blog has been slow the last few weeks– between travelling and sorting out conference stuff the blog’s fallen a bit quiet!

On Saturday though I made the trek out to Sculpture in the Parklands in Offaly (founded & managed by MA programme alumnus Kevin O’Doherty) to see Patrick Dougherty’s work in progress… an amazing willow sculpture, woven in and around a grove behind the park’s new visitor pavilion. It was an astounding piece of work– so intricate and amazingly complex. It looks magnificent in photographs but is even better in person– the modulations of light and shade, sequence of corridor-like spaces and enclosures, and the scent of fresh-cut branches can only really be experienced on site. It’s one of the most successful site-specific works I’ve seen in Ireland in some time. It’s a wonderful complement to the other works in the Parklands, though quite different in sensibility.

The 10-ton structure is being built with the assistance of a local crew over a 3-week period, and formally launching next Saturday. Patrick was extremely generous with his time in talking with visitors (and me!) about the work and his hopes for it– as his biggest work yet, it’s expected to last on site for the next few years, and it will be wonderful to see it mature and evolve over that time span.

Kudos to Kevin and everyone at Sculpture in the Parklands for all their hard work on the commission! It would be fantastic to see Bord na Mona really get behind the Parklands project, there’s so much scope to continue commissioning outstanding public artworks in such an evocative setting.