Bantry and Beyond
West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2021
The West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry, County Cork, Ireland, is delighted to introduce its 2021 virtual festival incarnation: Bantry and Beyond.
One of the most iconic and scenic locations in Ireland, Bantry is a stunningly beautiful harbor town, set between sea coast and mountains and known for its three Festivals - Chamber Music, Literary and the Masters of Tradition, as well as its teeming agricultural life, markets and outdoor activities, complete with its own ancient circle of standing stones, the Kealkil Stone Circle.
The renowned West Cork Chamber Music Festival typically takes place annually in Bantry, County Cork, Ireland. Over a period of ten days, a world-class line-up of international ensembles and soloists perform an extensive program of concerts which run from morning to late night.
This year, however, as the Festival musicians and audiences could not come to Bantry, the Festival has gone virtual and is pleased to present a truly unique series of thirty concerts from May 28 – July 25, enabling festival-goers to become virtual travelers to destinations across Europe and the USA.
In this special presentation, Bantry and Beyond surrounds its luxurious, central Festival Echoes series of twice-daily concerts (June 25 – July 4), with six elegant weekends of themed concert sets: opening with Classical Prelude (May 28-30), Russian Pictures(June 4-6), The Romantics (June 11-13), and Solos (June 18-20), concluding with Coda (July 16-18) and Encore (July 24 - 25).
The West Cork Chamber Music Festival also offers a special focus on Irish musicians and composers and proudly features them across many of its concert programs – from composers Deirdre Gribbin and Garth Knox to distinguished artists from Siobhán Doyle and Seán Morgan-Rooney, to the Esposito Quartet. Click here for more information on the concerts featuring Irish artists and composers.
Festival locations include concert halls in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Chicago; historic Great Houses of Ireland and the Netherlands; a centuries-old abbey with a fabulous library; Palaces in Prague and Vienna; old churches in London, Bantry and Amsterdam; a vaulted tunnel under a vanished convent in Cologne; studios in Amsterdam and Berlin; and Music Centers in Hungary and Italy. Click here for more information about the festival’s venues.
We are delighted that you can join us virtually this year and look forward to welcoming you to Bantry in the future!
Pricing
Full Festival Pass: €250 / $300
Single Ticket: €10 / $12
Pick 6 - pre-set, specially curated 6-concert packages: €50 / $60
Click here to view the concert groupings for available Pick 6 packages
Concert Information
Each concert will be broadcast twice: first in Irish Standard Time (GMT +1) and then again in US/Eastern Time. Concerts will be available to view on demand for a period of 48-hours following the North American broadcast.
Evening concerts:
European Broadcast: 8:00pm Irish Standard Time (GMT + 1)
North American Broadcast: 8:00pm ET / US
Festival Echoes Coffee Concerts:
European Broadcast: 11:00 am Irish Standard Time (GMT + 1)
North American Broadcast: 11:00 am ET / US
Classical Prelude
Friday 28 May – Sunday 30 May
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Our opening trilogy highlights the great classical quartet of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms, beginning in a Viennese Palace and finishing in one of Europe’s greatest chamber music venues at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. The sixteen-year-old Mozart gives us a joyful start ahead of Beethoven’s late quartet experiments – music for a later age. We follow with Schubert at his most tuneful and Brahms at his most romantic.
May 28: Mozart and Beethoven in Vienna Featuring: Artis Quartet
May 29: Late Schubert Featuring: Alexei Grynyuk
May 30: Cello Series #1 Brahms Featuring: Leonard Elschenbroich & Alexei Grynyuk
Russian Pictures
Friday 4 June – Sunday 6 June
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Our Russian trilogy returns to Amsterdam for a stunning recital by Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova ranging from Scriabin’s Fantasy and Black Mass Sonatas and a set of Rachmaninov Preludes to Mussorgsky’s Pictorial tour-de-force. Danel Quartet visit Abbaye Royaumont outside Paris to continue their trail-blazing exploration of the great but under-estimated Russian-Polish composer Weinberg, a long-time friend of Shostakovich – a relationship further explored in Johannes Moser’s recital.
June 4: Russian Masters Featuring: Anna Fedorova
June 5: From Beethoven to Weinberg Featuring: Danel Quartet
June 6: Cello Series #2 'Russia Featuring: Johannes Moser & Paul Rivinius
The Romantics
Friday 11 June – Sunday 13 June
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Dana Zemtsov’s recital explores the famous love triangle of Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms through their music culminating with one of Brahms’ last works, his glowing Second Viola Sonata. Fanny Mendelssohn was famous for her Berlin soirées where she hosted the latest family compositions including her own. Zemlinsky’s early Cello Sonata, lost for over a century, clearly owes its Romantic glow to Brahms, making it a perfect companion to the Master’s own work. Back in Paris the Belgian soprano Sophie Junker and Irish pianist Deirdre Brenner present a wide ranging programme by French composers.
June 11: Romantic Triangle Featuring: Dana Zemtsov & Anna Fedorova
June 12: Cello Series #3 Featuring: Johannes Moser & Paul Rivinius
June 13: Notre Amour Featuring: Sophie Junker & Deirdre Brenner
Solos
Friday 18 June – Sunday 20 June
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This trilogy sees three musicians take to the virtual stage alone with programmes from three different centuries. Alina Ibragimova unravels Telemann's ever-changing Twelve Fantasies for solo violin in London’s Henry Wood Hall. Cédric Tiberghien returns us to Paris for Beethoven’s straw-into-gold set of Variations based on Diabelli’s rather mundane theme. Zoltán Fejérvári transports us to Budapest for Tchaikovsky’s Seasons and Ravel’s luminous homage to the whole of eighteenth-century French music.
June 18: Twelve Fantasies Featuring: Alina Ibragimova
June 19: Thirty-Three Variations Featuring: Cédric Tiberghien
June 20: Twelve Seasons Featuring: Zoltán Fejérvári
Festival Echoes
Friday 25 June – Sunday 4 July
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The next fourteen concerts echo the 130 recitals planned for the original Festival that the pandemic took away from us. Turina’s Bullfighter’s Prayer is a good place to start followed by the World Premiere of Deirdre Gribbin’s new quartet written to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, our route to the stars. Over the ten days we travel musically through the centuries and virtually to strange and unlikely venues around Europe and USA. We hear Bach and Vivaldi in a tunnel under a old convent, Schubert and Schumann reappear in a magical castle, Berlioz’ stories of summer nights in a Christopher Wren church in the shadow of St Pauls Cathedral, great Czech composers appear in a palace in Prague and Mahler songs and Bloch’s mystical poem surface in Berlin. We keep Dvorak’s American quartet and Lera Auerbach’s homage to Bach for the Fourth of July.
June 25: World Premiere Featuring: Pacifica Quartet
June 26: Coffee Concerts - Baroque Sonatas Featuring: Ensemble Vintage Köln, Ariadne Daskalakis
June 26: Cello Series #4 Featuring: Anastasia Kobekina, Anna Fedorova
June 27: Coffee Concerts - Trio Sonatas Featuring: Ensemble Diderot & Johannes Pramsohler
June 27: L'Amour Featuring: Rachel Kelly & Fiachra Garvey
June 28: Citizens of Everywhere #1 Featuring: Mairéad Hickey & Ella Van Poucke
June 29: Intimate Letters Featuring: Pavel Haas Quartet
June 30: Youth's Magic Horn Featuring: Caroline Melzer & Cédric Pescia
July 1: Poème Mystique Featuring: Nurit Stark & Cédric Pescia
July 2: Roaring Twenties Featuring: Ragazze Quartet
July 3: Coffee Concerts - Generally Speaking It's Nothing But Rhythm Featuring: Alex Petcu
July 3: 3 Into 5 Featuring: Pavel Haas Quartet & Boris Giltburg
July 4: Coffee Concerts - Fellow Travellers Featuring: Ragazze Quartet
July 4: Partitas Old and New Featuring: Vadim Gluzman
Coda
Friday 16 July – Sunday 18 July
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After a break for our Literary Festival we return to Amsterdam for our second Citizens of Everywhere celebration featuring musicians from Ireland, Argentina and Netherlands with music from Vienna and Moscow. Finally we reach Bantry House, the Festival’s true home, with the last quartets by Mozart and Mendelssohn. Afterwards we travel to Budapest where cellist Vashti Hunter will join Zoltán Fejérvári to mark Saint-Saëns’ centenary.
July 16: Citizens of Everywhere #2 Featuring: Mairéad Hickey, Ella Van Poucke & José Gallardo
July 17: Last Works Featuring: Esposito Quartet
July 18: Cello Series #5 Featuring: Vashti Hunter & Fejérvári
Encore
Saturday 24 July – Sunday 25 July
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Our two encores come to you from Berlin and Amsterdam. Rosanne Philippens chose to mark the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s death with his light-hearted Divertimento, placing it between two Bach sonatas. Irish violinist, Mairéad Hickey and Dutch cellist, Ella van Poucke make a powerful combination for the Duos by Schulhoff, Kodály and Finola Merivale’s new work, commissioned by the Festival.
July 24: Divertimento Featuring: Rosanne Philippens & Julien Quentin
July 25: Citizens of Everywhere #3 Featuring: Siobhán Doyle & Alexei Grynyuk
About West Cork Chamber Music Festival
The West Cork Chamber Music Festival takes place annually in Bantry, County Cork. For ten days, from the last Friday in June, a world-class line-up of international ensembles and soloists perform an extensive programme of concerts which run from morning to late night. The two main venues are the intimate library of the historic Bantry House, which overlooks Bantry Bay; and St Brendan’s Church in the centre of Bantry. The Festival also includes a full schedule of performance workshops and masterclasses with resident student ensembles, composition workshops, public talks with artists as well as exhibitions and demonstrations from instrument makers.
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