MUSIC IN MONKSTOWN 5 - 8 September 2019
Featuring Hugh Tinney, Emma Abbate, John Finucane, Amy Gillen, Sacconi String Quartet, National Chamber Ensemble, Ceybele’s Flutes and the Jiani Guzheng Ensemble
About
Music in Monkstown is the brain-child of the RTE National Symphony Orchestra's principal clarinetist and Monkstown resident John Finucane, supported by other enthusiastic local music lovers.
After five incredibly successful years featuring exceptional artists such as sopranos Celine Byrne and Claudia Boyle, pianists John O'Conor, Finghín Collins, Michael McHale and Nathalia Milstein, Music in Monkstown is back in Monkstown Parish Church from the 5th to the 8th of September 2019 for its sixth annual festival.
This year's programme features concerts by some of the world's finest musicians: the Sacconi String Quartet will be joined by John Finucane for The Mozart clarinet quintet and by Emma Abbate for the Schumann piano quintet. Hugh Tinney will perform well-known works by Beethoven and Chopin as well as music written for him by Irish composer, Raymond Deane. A new concert is added this year with the winner of the Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year, flautist Amy Gillen, performing on the Thursday night. Two Irish groups perform the afternoon concerts: a four members of the National Symphony Orchestra unite as the National Chamber Ensemble on Saturday and a Baroque ensemble on Sunday.
There is an innovative concert also on Saturday when a group of Chinese harpists give a demonstration and a concert of the beautiful music of their country.
The aim of the Music in Monkstown festival has always been to offer to the people of Monkstown and surrounding areas chamber music of the highest international standard and this year is no exception. Six fantastic concerts, each with a different outlook on the world of music and each one brought to your doorstep!
The festival is also proud to offer musical delights for young children too, through our collaboration with ClassicalKids who offer relaxed, affordable, accessible classical music concerts for parents, children, toddlers and babies in community settings.
Music in Monkstown is grateful to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and the Arts Council for their invaluable ongoing support.
Monkstown
Monkstown is one of the loveliest remaining villages in the Dublin area, with many amenities to hand. It has plenty of appealing shops, good places to eat and drink and the ambiance is one of relaxed elegance. Already a popular venue for classical music concerts, we are delighted to bring Monkstown its very own music festival.
Monkstown Parish Church
The venue for all our Music in Monkstown concerts, Monkstown Parish Church was redesigned by the prolific 19th century church architect John Semple, who also created the Mansion House's Round Room in Dublin city centre. The church was a particular favourite of Sir John Betjeman, the British Poet Laureate and church historian who served as Press Attache with the British Embassy in Dublin in the early 1940s. For him Monkstown Parish Chruch, which he visited frequently when staying with Gate Theatre founder Lady Wicklow who lived nearby, was on of the best examples of Semple's work around the city's suburbs.