'FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS'

Friday 1st May, 7.30pm, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork

The National Chamber Choir of Ireland return to Cork International Choral Festival by popular demand, in a follow up to last year’s sold-out concert (the first in the festival’s Friday ‘Cathedrals Evening’). The Choral Festival is delighted to welcome back to Cork the country’s most distinguished choral ensemble, this time under conductor and Artistic Director Paul Hillier. The NCC will once again co-present the Seminar on New Choral Music, to take place on Saturday May 2nd. This concert features not only a selection of pieces which stretch “from the sublime to the ridiculous”, but also the world premiere performances of pieces by composers Andrew Hamilton and Ezequiel Viñao, specially commissioned for the Seminar on Contemporary Choral Music.

For more information on the Seminar on New Choral Music and the composers and new commissions which will be performed at this concert, please see the Seminar on New Choral Music page for more information.

'From the sublime to the ridiculous' - Programme:

This program is conceived as a kind of sandwich, with romantics as the bread and moderns as the meat. The opening set of Shakespeare partsongs were written in the 1860s by George Macfarren, one of the leading composers of his day - now (unjustly!) forgotten. They are fine examples of choral writing and demonstrate the Victorian partsong at its very best.

Howard Skempton is a contemporary composer (b.1947), whose choice of texts frequently shows a predilection for the romantics, and in The Flight of Song we have a little cycle of poems (opening with a pictorial score) by the American romantic poet, Henry Longfellow. The music is quietly eloquent, tonal, but with a freshness of touch that always distinguishes Skempton’s music.

In between these two romantic collections are three works that provide a varied and very contrasted perspective on the world. First is a work presenting one of the iconic texts of Italian humanism, Pico della Mirandola’s ‘On the dignity of man’. The music was originally composed by Gavin Bryars in the 1980’s for my earlier group, the Hilliard Ensemble. (Both Skempton and Bryars are part of what used to be known as the English Experimental Tradition - the ‘experiment’ being to write tonally when this was still completely against the establishment grain.)

It is followed by two world premieres. A short setting of a short text from the writings of the Austrian author, Thomas Bernhard, which states that everything is ridiculous when you think of death. The music is by the young Irish composer, Andrew Hamilton.

We also premiere a new work by the Argentinian composer (now resident in New York City), Ezequiel Viñao. The music sets a substantial fragment from the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, descrbing the funeral of the warrior Scyld’s (Shield). This presents the heroic world of Bronze Age Ancient Britain - though the action of the poem is in fact set in Denmark. Beowulf should need no introduction to Irish audiences, who can read the entire epic in the splendid translation published just a few years ago by Seamus Heaney.

BIOGRAPHY: The National Chamber Choir of Ireland is widely regarded as Ireland’s most distinguished choir. It is celebrated both in Ireland and internationally for its fresh and innovative sound. Founded in 1991 by composer and conductor, Colin Mawby and developed under the direction of Brazilian conductor Celso Antunes until early 2007, the National Chamber Choir of Ireland is the country’s only professional vocal ensemble. In 2008, the internationally celebrated and grammy-award winning conductor Paul Hillier joined the National Chamber Choir of Ireland as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor.

The National Chamber Choir is made up of extraordinary vocalists drawn from the ranks of Europe’s leading choral singers. Each vocalist has a different and wide-ranging background in solo, opera and choral performance, which enhances the choir’s ability to undertake some of the most diverse and challenging choral work and contributes to the warm and special sound that is unique to this Irish ensemble.

The National Chamber Choir of Ireland’s repertoire extends from early to contemporary music, regularly commissioning new pioneering vocal work from Irish and international composers. In recent years the National Chamber Choir of Ireland has worked with such distinguished guest conductors as Stephen Layton (Cambridge), Robert Hollingworth (London), Erwin Ortner (Vienna) and Catherine Simonpietri (Paris) as well as Irish conductors Brian MacKay, David Brophy and Orla Flanagan.

As well as its flagship work in Ireland, which includes a national tour the National Chamber Choir is dedicated to performing internationally. In 2008 it performed at the Midsummer Festival in Leipzig and the Festival Europaeische Kirchenmusik in Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany together with the renowned instrumental group, the Rascher Saxophone Quartet, directed by James Wood.

For further information, please contact: Eibhlin Gleeson - Chief Executive Officer Telephone: 00353 1 7008090 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Address: The National Chamber Choir, DCU, Glasnevin, Dublin 9. Ireland.

Artistic Director: Paul Hillier Paul Hillier is from Dorset in England and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His career has embraced singing, conducting, and writing about music. Earlier in his career he was founding director of the Hilliard Ensemble, and subsequently founded Theatre of Voices. He has taught in the USA at the University of California campuses at Santa Cruz and Davis, and from 1996-2003 was Director of the Early Music Institute at Indiana University. He was Principal Conductor of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (2001-2007) and has been Chief Conductor of Ars Nova Copenhagen since 2003. His recordings, over a hundred CDs including seven solo recitals, have earned worldwide acclaim and won numerous prizes. His books about Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich, together with numerous anthologies of choral music, are published by Oxford University Press. In 2006 he was awarded an OBE for services to choral music. In 2007 he received the Order of the White Star of Estonia, and was awarded a Grammy for Best Choral Recording. In 2008 he took up the position of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the National Chamber Choir of Ireland.