Soloists, ensembles and orchestras from Europe, South America and the USA will take part in Music for Galway’s 32nd season, which was launched this week and features over 20 events.

The opening concert, on Tuesday, October 2 will focus on flute quartets and piano sonatas of Haydn with flautist Madeleine Staunton, pianist Peter Tuite, and members of ConTempo Quartet. These works are rarely heard in concert and the programme has been specially devised for Music for Galway.

The season will close at the end of April with a special Schubert evening in the Meyrick Hotel Ballroom, featuring bass baritone Conor Biggs performing some of Schubert’s most beautiful songs and ConTempo Quartet performing the composer’s quartet, Death and the Maiden.

In between, there will be a range of events, including orchestral concerts in Seapoint Ballroom.

The Irish Chamber Orchestra will bring a programme ranging from the third symphony of Philip Glass to Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings on October 17. The Irish Baroque Orchestra and Monica Huggett return to Galway on November 22 with a vibrant new work by American composer Hollis Taylor called Groove Theory.

Prize-winning Russian pianist Nicolay Khozainov visits Galway on November 7 for a concert at the Aula Maxima, while Venetian, Allesandro Taverna will be at the same venue on February 14.

Touring events this season feature the outstanding Irish choir, Resurgam in Handel’s Messiah just before Christmas and the renowned BBC Singers in a pre-Easter concert featuring Seven Last Words from the Cross in a contemporary setting by Scottish composer James MacMillan.

Concerts will be enhanced by two award-winning films, shown at the Huston School of Film and Digital Media: In search of Haydn and Portrait of Philip Glass: Glass in 12 Parts. Music by Philip Glass will feature in concerts by the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the young German saxophone quartet, sonic.art.

This year Music for Galway present two special three-day festivals. One is presented in association with the Galway Music Residency, celebrating their 10th anniversary with the world-renowned Galway ensemble in residence, ConTempo Quartet. Special guests for this event include pianist Isabelle O’Connell from New York, accordion player Dermot Dunne with Ariel Hernandez from Argentina, and the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet.

The annual Midwinter Festival in the third weekend of January focuses on the music of Beethoven: Genius, Passion and the Irish Connection.

This Festival is again sponsored by DERI and it brings together the outstanding Dutch piano trio Osiris, the Dutch soprano Charlotte Riedijk, UK based Irish tenor Robin Tritschler, clarinetist Paul Roe and Cork born pianist Rebecca Capova. Actor Rod Goodall will read from the letters of Beethoven as translated by Galway scholar, Emily Anderson whose translation of Beethoven’s correspondence brought the composer closer to the English speaking world.

The festival will feature Piano Trios, Bagatelles for solo piano, the song cycle To the Distant Beloved, the Clarinet Trio, and Beethoven’s settings of Irish folk songs for voice, violin, cello and piano.
Full details on that festival and on all Music for Galway’s events for this season at www.musicforgalway.ie.