RTÉ Concert Orchestra May and June 2024
Concerts in Limerick, Dublin, Carlow and Cork, including Marty in the Evening, Morricone and May the Fourth Be With You, celebrating the remarkable decade of the 1950s and marking the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March in Ireland – this and much more on the way from the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in May and June.
RTÉ lyric fm @ 25
Wednesday 1 May 2024, 7.30pm
University Concert Hall, Limerick
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Celine Byrne soprano • Emmet Cahill tenor • Juliette Crosbie vocalist • Berginald Rash clarinet • Zoë Conway violin • Edwina Guckian dancer
Our Lady Queen of Peace Choir
David Brophy conductor
Join us as we celebrate the 25th birthday of RTÉ lyric fm in its Limerick home with a gala concert featuring the music of Puccini, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Bizet, Morricone, Bernstein, John Williams, Strauss, Copland, Mascagni, Mancini, Alan Menken, Dvořák and more!
The evening is hosted by RTÉ lyric fm presenters as we come together to celebrate the joy of music and its power to connect.
Along with the favourites, three new works for orchestra with focus on the themes of nostalgia, hope and rebirth are premiering. Limerick composer and Cranberries drummer Fergal Lawler’s The Curragower Falls reflects on memories of childhood by the River Shannon. Cork composer Paul Frost’s A New Day Rising captures the feeling of waking up to a new day, to the sounds of nature and the irrepressible sense of optimism. Bualadh an cheoil, bualadh an chroí (Music playing, heart beating) by Dundalk composer and fiddle player and RTÉ Concert Orchestra Associate Artist Zoë Conway is about the powerful connection of Irish music to the body and dance.
Tickets €35 from www.uch.ie | Presented by RTÉ lyric fm
May the Fourth Be With You – The Music of Star Wars
Saturday 4 May 2024, 8pm
The Helix, Dublin
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Dionysis Grammenos conductor
Presented by RTÉ’s Seán Rocks
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra presents an evening of epic music from Star Wars movies. Experience a live orchestra going full tilt in stirring themes from The Phantom Menace, The Attack of the Clones, The Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and more. With young Greek conductor Dionysis Grammenos – described by Die Welt as ‘one of the most promising stars of tomorrow’ – and presenter Seán Rocks of RTÉ, the force is strong with this one!
Tickets €15–€42.50 – subject to booking fees – from www.thehelix.ie
Presented by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Queen: A Symphonic Rock Spectacular
Thursday 9 May 2024, 8pm
National Concert Hall, Dublin
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Martin Yates conductor & guest vocalists
We will rock you with this symphonic spectacular celebrating the greatest hits of one of the most legendary rock bands in the world, Queen.
Stars past and present from the West End hit musical We Will Rock You perform with a live rock band, backing vocalists and the champions, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
Don’t miss your chance to be part of this celebration of Queen, the incomparable Freddie Mercury and their unique legacy. Featuring full arrangements of We Are The Champions, Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, Who Wants to Live Forever, Somebody to Love, and many, many more.
Tickets €15–€42.50 from www.nch.ie / 01 417 0000
Presented by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in association with West End International Ltd
The 50s: The Decade That Changed the World
Thursday 16 May 2024, 8pm
National Concert Hall, Dublin
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Guy Barker conductor
Giacomo Smith clarinet/saxophone
Clare Teal and Cormac Kenevey vocalists
James Pearson piano
Following the extraordinary Guy Barker’s Gatsby & Beyond New Year’s Eve Extravaganza, this night of 1950s jazz promises to showcase the decade that changed the world, drawing on influences from Elvis to Ella Fitzgerald.
An opening medley pays tribute to the amazing albums that came out in the cornerstone year of 1959, featuring music by John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and more.
Top names in jazz joining the RTÉ CO and its Associate Artist are pianist James Pearson, Artistic Director at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, virtuoso clarinettist and sax player Giacomo Smith and award-winning vocalist Clare Teal.
Guy Barker’s new clarinet concerto, The Art of the Hang, gets its first Irish performance. This concerto, which pays homage to the 1950s, was written during lockdown and is dedicated to his late friend John Cumming of Serious Productions. It takes its title from an observation in an obituary that Cumming was ‘master of the art of the pre-show, interval and post-show hang (the most essential skill in a music promoter)’.
Clare Teal will join the orchestra for numbers including Judy Garland’s Get Happy and Doris Day’s Secret Love, and Cormac Kenevey will sing I’m Walkin’ and Heartbreak Hotel. The RTÉ CO will perform a 1950s movie medley including music from A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Lift to the Scaffold (1958), and Otto Preminger noirs The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).
The evening will finish with a magnificent Louis Prima medley featuring both vocalists. It will pay tribute to the wave-making American trumpeter and singer, whose style was rooted in New Orleans jazz, swing music and jump blues, drawing also on Italian culture and language, blending elements of his Italian and Sicilian identity with his music.
Tickets €15–€42.50 from www.nch.ie / 01 417 0000 | Presented by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Vladimir Jablokov – Four Seasons Explained with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Friday 24 May 2024, 7.30pm and Saturday 25 May 2024, 2.30pm
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra will be performing on stage accompanied by visuals on the screen.
Four Seasons Explained: with this unique arrangement, not only will we get to hear the most amazing music but we will also get a visual translation of the 300 year old sonnets that inspired the pieces.
Nature waking up in Spring, birds singing, destructive Summer Storm, drunken shepherds in Autumn after making the wine, the person sitting in front of the warm fireplace in the house, while he hears the raindrops outside his window in Winter.
It’s not easy to read old sonnets written in a poetic language and put it with music as it is being played. But if you see a sleeping Goatherd and barking Dog at the exact moment one of the instruments is miming the sound of the bark, it will make sense right away and really adds to the enjoyment of the pieces.
Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi is the most popular classical composition of all time. Hundreds of performers took the challenge of performing it throughout the centuries and dozens of recordings were released. The unique part of this work is the story behind the music. Well ahead of his time Vivaldi released the Four Seasons with the accompanying sonnets to explain the different moments.
Now Vladimir explains the story with abstract moving images on screen throughout the work based on original notes published over 300 years ago.
The concert will be conducted by Vladimir’s youngest brother Viktor Jablokov who also arranged and orchestrated this work.
The latter half of the concert will feature Vladimir with his brother Anton Jablokov performing popular classics including, Hava Nagila, Bella Ciao, a theme from The Godfather, Those Were The Days and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Tickets from €31.50 – see www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie | Presented by Vladimir Jablokov
Verdi Requiem
Friday 31 May, 8pm
Carlow Cathedral
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Blánaid Murphy conductor
Carlow Choral Society
Presented by Carlow Choral Society
Information to follow on Carlow Choral Society’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CarlowChoralSoc/
The Music of Ennio Morricone
Wednesday 5 June 2024, 8pm
National Concert Hall, Dublin
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Anthony Gabriele conductor
Muirgen O’Mahony soprano
Mornington Singers, chorus master Orla Flanagan
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra pays tribute to the music of Ennio Morricone (1928–2020).
Morricone wrote more than 400 scores for film and television and his multitude of awards includes two Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards and three Golden Globes. The RTÉ CO brings some of his best-loved music to life in an evening ranging from A Fistful of Dollars (1964) right up to The Hateful Eight (2015).
From two of his most famous scores, we’ll hear the main theme and love theme from Cinema Paradiso (1988) and music from The Mission (1989), including of course Gabriel’s Oboe.
Morricone used soprano voice and choir for some of his most iconic and haunting themes. Muirgen O’Mahony and the Mornington Singers join the RTÉ CO for three of these: Ecstasy of Gold from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, the main theme from Once Upon a Time in the West and Deborah’s Theme from Once Upon a Time in America. Other stops on this journey of cinematic brilliance include themes from Days of Heaven (1978), The Legend of 1900 (1976) and The Untouchables (1987).
Conductor Anthony Gabriele is a film music expert, noted as one of the finest ‘Film with Orchestra’ conductors, winning acclaim with world premieres of Superman, Spectre, Moby Dick and Les Choristes.
Tickets €15–€42.50 from www.nch.ie / 01 417 0000 | Presented by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Jenny Greene and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Live at The Marquee, Cork
Friday 14 June 2024
Jenny Greene invites you to the next chapter in her dance collaboration with The RTÉ Concert Orchestra bringing new sonic, visual and acoustic-electronic dance music to our audience.
Stretching the artistic boundaries, Jenny and the orchestra invite you to dance with a host of amazing artists.
Presented by Aiken Promotions – see www.aikenpromotions.com
Pipeworks
Wednesday 19 June
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
David Leigh conductor
Daniel Moult organist
Stanford Stabat mater
Whitlock Symphony for organ and orchestra
More information to follow on www.pipeworks.ie
SHINE
Thursday 20 June 2024, 8pm, National Concert Hall, Dublin
Friday 21 June 2024, 7.30pm, University Concert Hall, Limerick
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Stephen Bell conductor
Featuring Wallis Bird, Shobsy and more
Marking the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March in Ireland.
The Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride Festival in collaboration with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and University Concert Hall Limerick presents a performance to celebrate, commemorate, support and applaud the LGBTQ+ community in Ireland and beyond, promoting human rights, resilience to overcoming obstacles, and what we now know as diversity and inclusivity.
On 27 June 1974, the Sexual Liberation Movement, a Dublin-based group founded in Trinity College Dublin in 1973, organised the first Gay Pride demonstration in Dublin.
In a sign of the growing international gay rights movement and solidarity amongst organisations, a decision had been made in May 1974, at the annual congress of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, to dedicate Gay Pride Day 1974 to highlighting the situation faced by homosexuals in Ireland, and to offer support. As a result, on the same day that the British Embassy and the Department of Justice were picketed, activists in Norway similarly picketed the British Embassy in Oslo, carrying placards that stated, ‘Stop the Oppression of Irish Homosexuals’, and ‘No to discrimination on the grounds of being different’, standing for the choice to love. The first Pride night was held in Limerick 27 years later, in 2001.
A sparkling evening of music from across the genres, including film scores, opera, and the best of national and international pop culture, performed by members of the community and allies, promises a thought-provoking journey and a wonderful event. With sing-along moments of pride, community and humanity, join artists including Shobsy and Wallis Bird, put on your sequins, and get ready to shine!
Presented by Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and University Concert Hall Limerick.
For ticket information see www.rte.ie/co
Marty in the Evening with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre
Wednesday 26 June 2024, 8pm
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Conductor Stephen Bell
Guests including Ava Dodd and Tim Howar
Presented by Marty Whelan, RTÉ lyric fm
Capturing the flavour of Marty in the Morning with a richly entertaining live experience! Fans of Marty Whelan’s much-loved programme on RTÉ lyric fm will know it has an eclectic playlist encompassing classical, opera, popular, film, musicals, jazz and more. Now audiences can enjoy an evening packed with a similar wide range of favourites performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and guests, all presented by the man himself in his own unique style. Previous concerts in Dublin and Wexford were a huge sellout success. Now back by popular demand with a new selection, Marty in the Evening is coming to the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre for the first time. Early booking advised!
Tickets from €35 – see www.rte.ie/co