The ConTempo Quartet will perform a special concert in St Fursa’s Parish Hall, Headford, this Sunday, October 6, at 8pm. Celebrating Michaelmas, it’s part of the ConTempo Countywide Initiative, in collaboration with Headford’s Something in the Water Festival.

This is latest in ConTempo’s series of concerts to mark the Celtic calendar and it celebrates the movement into winter, with musical pieces that reflect shorter days and colder weather.

Michaelmas was also sometimes known as the Goose Harvest, possibly because it was the time of year when geese were getting fat, according to Maeve Bryan of Galway Music Residency, the organisation that hosts these concerts.

But there may be another reason too.

“Legend also has it that when the son of a king choked on a goose bone and was restored to life by St Patrick, the king ordered a goose to be sacrificed every Michaelmas to honour his son’s rescuer.”

The Michaelmas programme for Headford will feature classical and contemporary compositions, based on the harvest that has been gathered in, and the impending winter.

ConTempo will perform movements from Smetana’s Quartet No. 1 – From my Life; Peteris Vasks’ Quartet No.3; Schumann’s Quartet No. 3, Op. 4; and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13, Op. 130.

Before the music starts, there will be a reading of Robert Frost’s poem Gathering Leaves, which will be given by Andrea Villegas, a student of Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Galway.

Entry to the concert is free, all are welcome and no booking is required.

Donations are welcome.

This programme was performed in Galway City earlier this week as part of the monthly Lunchtimes with ConTempo series that takes place on the first Tuesday of the month at St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church.

The Celtic Calendar series will continue on Tuesday, November 5, at 1.10pm, when Samhain will be the focus of Lunchtime with ConTempo. Samhain will be performed again in Claregalway Castle on Sunday, November 16, at 7pm, as part of ConTempo Countywide.

And the theme for the Lunchtime With ConTempo on Tuesday, December 3, in St Nicholas’, will be Winter Solstice. The quartet will bring that concert to Ballinasloe Library on Sunday December 15, at 1pm.

For further information on all events, visit www.galwaymusicresidency.ie.

Pictured: ConTempo are performing in Headford as part of the Galway Music Residency Countywide series.