Search Results for 'cellist'

A POP-up gig amid the wild splendour of Inishbofin awaits music fans when the ‘We Used To Play Here’ tour comes to the Connemara island next week.

A first Galway festival that celebrates the beauty of the cello starts today online.

A uniquely Galwegian instrument will see its concert debut at the opening of Music for Galway’s reimagined CELLISSIMO festival, a new cello festival for the west of Ireland, in a special performance at 7:30pm on March 25th, when Headford musician Naomi Berrill plays a piece specially composed for the Galway Cello by Bill Whelan.

“THE CELLO can be bass, soprano or alto. Its endpin strikes the ground and it seems as if its power and deep sound are coming up from the earth. When played it lies between the musicians legs and they have to embrace it. It’s a very physical thing, it almost becomes part of their body.”

It was in 2013, as we were preparing our 2014/15 concert season, that Finghin Collins, Music for Galway’s new artistic director, said he’d like to have a season focussing on the cello: such a gorgeous instrument, he mused, closest to the human voice, so sensual in form, so versatile: fabulous on its own, great in trios, quartets, quintets, so beautiful as part of an orchestra and fantastic as soloist instrument: “We’ll have such fun!”

THE SOUND of the cello, a pleasure for the ear and appealing to the heart as the instrument many believe is closest in sound to the human voice, will be at the centre of a new festival for Galway.

IF HEARING Bach’s Goldberg Variations for the first time, at the age of 14, was not life changing for cellist Natalie Clein, it was close to that - a profound sense of awe which has stayed with her to this day.

"I DON'T know much about classic music," Sandy Bates, Woody Allen's character in Stardust Memories noted. "For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr and Mrs Goldberg tried on their wedding night."

IN A time where the woods of Galway, birthplace of the Galway Cello, lie open to silent skies and the world comes to grips with the Covid-19 pandemic, two Irish musicians will collaborate over this newly-made, yet-unplayed instrument.

CLARA SCHUMANN kept first rate company when it came to musicians - she was married to Robert Schumann and was friends with Johannes Brahms. She was also a superb composer and pianist in own right.