Review of the Year - Some of the best musical moments of 2010

Looking back over the blog I have selected some of the most memmorable moments of 2010. Reviews on all items can be found in last year's years blog and can be found using the search button.

Conductor  David Chase conductor gave a memorable performance with the La Jolla Chorus from San Diego at Glór, Ennis. They were wonderful and he had a charming  and commanding presence.  His erudite vocal introductions to a most interesting programme added much to the pleasure of the occasion.

Performance The Good Friday concert by Limerick Choral Union including a performance of Jenkins Stabat Mater was a highlight. Conductor Malcolm Greene created a hair raising experience combining many unusual elements. It was perhaps the performance I most enjoyed participating in I  can't give a fully  unbiased review as I was playing in the viola section!

Composer  I was impressed with Sean Tyrrell's setting in a trad idiom of  The Midnight Court at the Highway Inn  in Crusheen

Best  Pub Gig  We really enjoyed Vladimir Jablokov  Classical Twist  gig upstairs in Dolan's Limerick .  He is wonderful to watch and we look forward to seeing him in the Midwestern region again.  Another Slovak young musician also impressed me at this venue, young Andreas Varedy is also one to watch

Best Debut The debut performances of the Blazing Bows and Swinging Strings String Ensembles in their school halls for fellow students, family and friends were one of my favourite occasions of the year.

Best Venue  NCH It is hard to beat the festive and grand air of the National Concert Hall. It gave me great pleasure to see assist in bringing two youth ensembles from Colaiste Muire Ennis and St Peter's College Dunboyne to perform at this prestigious venue at the IAYO Festival of Youth Orchestras. I was  especially thrilled to see some of my beginners coming through from instrumental programmes I  initiated in both schools. I enjoyed playing there  in December myself as a member if the 1st violin section of the former Irish Youth Orchestra players under Gearoid Grant

Best Musical  Shannon Musical Society for their production of Beauty and the Beast.  The school hall was again as if by magic transported to a magical place for this scintillating production which was up to the usual high standards for this company  with a  wonderful band under direction of MD Carmel Griffin

Best Male  Singer
Clarecastle tenor Dean Power gave a wonderful farewell evening before he headed off to the Bavarian State Opera to join their Young Artist's Programme . It was an evening of arias and high emotions as his local community packed the local church to hear Dean and other fine singers perform. 

Best Female Singer

I didn't post on this evening in Glor but Eddi Reader  was a wonderfully relaxed and witty performer with a  varied mix of repertoire and I look forward to hearing her when she returns in February

Best Newcomer  Bilkees Saidi    for her role as Reno in Anything Goes at Colaiste Muire  Ennis .  Geat poise and voice  from this teenage performer .


In My Thoughts  Friends of Anne Grennan were shocked and sad to learn of Anne's  untimely death  earlier this year. A wonderful teacher and choral director , she is much missed.  Remembering also Josephine Healy  who passed away in 2009 , also a wonderful teacher from whom I learned much by looking at her in action in Dunboyne

Independent Music Clubs Clare; Sean Tyrrell / Kevin Burke

 


  It has been a week for opera in  various forms and I am just back from Sean Tyrrell's unique traditional opera  setting of 'The Midnight Court'  at the  Frank Hayes' Island Music Club  at the Highway Inn in Crusheen. I think this is one of the most successful one man shows I have seen, both entertaining and thought provoking.  Based on the poem by Brian Merriman in a translation by David Marcus, it is an account of the age old  battle of the sexes, told  in  bawdy verse form and set to music by Tyrrell himself  in a trad' idiom.  The show opened with the spoken word but was mostly related in song to mandola accompaniment.  Although several hundred years old there were many resonances  with modern day Ireland  making it seem very  current. 



Sean Tyrrell in The Midnight Court



One was immediately struck on entering the intimate space that is the backroom of The Highway Inn by the theatrical props of masks, hats and puppets and considerable care had gone in to dressing the windows in lights and  crimson chiffon.  The use of masks to portray the hag and Queen Aeval lent an air of Greek drama and  the plot has some resonance with  the battle of the sexes in Euripides' Lysistrata.

There was something of a festival atmosphere in the Highway Inn this evening as the GAA  Crusheen  Junior A team had won a match  adding to the success of Crusheen GAA  in recent weeks  and the team were in to accept plaudits all adding to the general hurly burly of Saturday night. It was a shame that the venue was not packed to capacity as this show deserved to draw a larger audience.