Thursday 11th November | 7:30pm
Curtis Auditorium, MTU Cork School of Music
The Lir Quartet are back as part of their sixth tour for the National String Quartet Foundation and for this concert they are led by Mia Cooper and joined by cellist Christopher Marwood for Schubert’s final chamber work, the String Quintet in C major. The Quintet is generally regarded as the composer’s finest chamber work as well as one of the greatest compositions in all chamber music. The programme opens with one of John Kinsella’s short, virtuosic and entertaining works for string quartet.
Tickets:
€20 (General Admission) | €15 (Concessions & COS standard members)
€10 (COS concessionary members) | €5 (Students)
Please note: I.D. and a valid Covid passport will be requested at the venue.
Programme
John Kinsella:
‘On hearing Purcell and Shostakovich at Bantry House – June 2008’
Franz Schubert:
String Quintet in C major, D.956
LIR QUARTET
Mia Cooper, violin
Siobhán Doyle, violin
David Kenny, viola
William Butt, cello
with Christopher Marwood, cello
Mia Cooper violin
Mia Cooper has lived in Dublin since her appointment as leader of the RTE Concert Orchestra in 2006. She previously held principal positions with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and City of London Sinfonia, has appeared as guest leader of many of the UK’s symphony orchestras. Equally at home as a chamber musician, Mia has participated in chamber music festivals, in Ireland, the UK, France, India, and Lithuania. Mia studied with renowned pedagogue Yossi Zivoni at the Royal Northern College of Music, and continued her training at the Paris Conservatoire. She teaches violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
Siobhán Doyle violin
Siobhán was born into a musical family and began learning the violin at the age of four with Emma Montenon. Her love of chamber music was cultivated during many summers at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival and also during her time at the Royal Northern College of Music where she was awarded the Roger Raphael prize for her contribution to chamber music. Siobhán was a co-founder of the Lir String Quartet in 2017. Together they have given recitals in Triskel Arts Centre, St Brendan’s Church in Bantry and at the Clandeboye Music Festival at the invitation of Barry Douglas. She has also appeared at the Ortús Chamber Music Festival, the Cowbridge Music Festival (Wales) and the Aurora Festival (Sweden), and recent performances at the National Concert Hall include the NCH Chamber Music Gathering, the Gwendolyn Masin and Finghin Collins Series and the Musici Ireland 5×5 Summer Lunchtime Series.
David Kenny viola
A native of Cork, David Kenny studied with Constantin Zanidache and Simon Aspell at the CIT Cork School of Music. He has worked with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Wexford Festival Opera Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, John Wilson Orchestra and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. He has played Principal Viola with the European Union Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland. In 2016, David was appointed to the viola section of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
He has performed at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Music in Drumcliffe and the Interlaken Classics Festival. He has collaborated with the Ficino Ensemble, Musici Ireland and the Vanbrugh Quartet. As violist with the Shandon String Trio he undertook a Chamber Studio mentorship under Richard Lester at Kings Place, London, last year.
He has participated in masterclasses with Yuri Bashmet, Nobuko Imai, Bruno Giuranna, Maxim Rysanov, Lawrence Power and with members of the Alban Berg, Vanbrugh, Pacifica, Artemis, Vogler, Danel, Danish and Casals Quartets.
William Butt cello
William Butt enjoys a busy career as soloist, chamber musician and is professor of cello at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. On the concert platform he has performed extensively throughout Ireland, the UK, Europe and the Far East. He is a much admired exponent of the solo repertoire, having performed and broadcast numerous works for this medium by contemporary composers, as well as the formidable solo sonatas by Kodaly and Ligeti and the suites of Bach and Britten. Of his recording of the Britten suites, the Observer wrote: ‘Warner have found a worthy successor to Rostropovich, for whom Britten wrote these three suites… Meticulously played, with the passion and commitment the composer discerned in their dedicatee, these elegant, eloquent pieces could not have been entrusted to a safer pair of hands’
He has performed and broadcast all the major concerti, in 1997 he gave the Irish premiere of the Walton concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra, in 2001 the Dvorak concerto with the NSO and 2003 a tour of the Schumann concerto with the NSO. As well as a performance of the Protecting Veil by John Tavener with the Hibernian Orchestra he undertook a series at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in 2004 with the orchestra of St Cecilia and Barry Douglas in which he played the Dvorak, Elgar, Shostakovich (No 1), Tchaikovsky Rococo variations, and both Haydn concerti in three concerts over a two week period. He has also performed and broadcast the cello concerto by Victor Herbert with the Ulster orchestra. He plays on a fine cello made by Giovanni Grancino in Milan (1690).
Christopher Marwood cello
Christopher Marwood graduated from Cambridge University in 1983 and went on to study at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Conservatorium Maastricht. His cello teachers included Florence Hooton, David Strange, Ralph Kirshbaum, William Pleeth and Radu Aldulescu. His chamber music mentor for many years was Emmanuel Hurwitz.
As cellist of the Vanbrugh Quartet for 32 years, Christopher Marwood enjoyed a busy career performing throughout Ireland and touring worldwide. The Quartet released over thirty CDs encompassing a wide range of repertoire and including the complete Beethoven quartets (“fine enough to bear comparison with any set” Fanfare, USA). They built up a considerable repertoire including at least sixty Irish works, many of them commissions or premieres. The Quartet’s contribution to music in Ireland was formally recognized in 2016 when they were presented with the National Concert Hall’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Christopher co-founded the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in 1996 and remains director of the Festival’s masterclass programme. He is also director of the National String Quartet Foundation which curates and sponsors some fifty concerts nationwide each year, supporting Irish musicians and concert promoters. He teaches at CIT Cork School of Music and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and continues to perform both as soloist and as chamber musician. His recent CD of works by Boris Tchaikovsky was nominated for the 2019 International Classical Music Awards