15th Sligo Festival of Baroque Music

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Baroque and Beyond

We feel both pleased and proud that we have a very full and ambitious festival programme for this, the fifteenth Sligo festival. Recession notwithstanding. The programme explores some of the peripheral areas of baroque music – but not with just a dry musicological interest, some really wonderful music that will be new to many. The music of Georg Muffat is one focal point. In many ways it laid the foundations for German music in the 18^th century with its fusion of both Italian and French styles, and definitely too rarely finds its way into concert programmes. All of Muffat’s Armonico Tributo suites will be performed by the exciting young Polish ensemble Arte dei Suonatori. They will end the festival performing Telemann’s Polish suites/concertos with one of the most successful young Irish baroque specialists, recorder player Kate Hearne.

The end of the baroque period, or the transition to early classical music is another focal area. Susan Alexander-Max and the Music Collection have established a very considerable reputation for their performance of music from this time, and they will provide two concerts and a lecture recital. A more unusual angle on the end of the baroque is given by Sarah Groser’s  lunch-time recital of music for the Viola da Gamba composed at a time when that instrument was already something of an anachronism.

The music of Dowland and Monteverdi is of course familiar, and both have featured numbers of times in earlier Sligo Festivals. Soprano Roisin O’Grady and baroque guitarist, Eamon Sweeney will link the music of Dowland and Monteverdi with that of the considerably less familiar Caccini, Kapsberger, Ó Catháin, and Narvaéz in their late-night recital on Saturday.

The festival grew out of the activities of Sligo Early Music Ensemble, which now plays as Sligo Baroque Orchestra and is this year celebrating twenty years music-making. It seems appropriate that the festival in 2010 should open with a short welcome concert by Sligo Baroque Orchestra. Linking the festival both back with its roots, and with the musical activity that goes on throughout the year in Sligo. This concert will be followed by a reception.

The first Festival took place in a very unrefurbished Model in 1995, no effective heating, almost no facilities, but still an appropriate, attractive venue with a fantastic acoustic. A second really major refurbishment has just been completed, with a new performance space as well as extended galleries and a new restaurant, but also retaining the original model school building fundamentally unaltered.

We look forward to extending a very warm welcome to you during the first weekend in October 2010.

Rod Alston – artistic director

Programme at a glance…