The Esker Festival Orchestra will give concerts in Galway and Dublin this month – the 11th year the group has performed in Galway.

The orchestra will be return to Galway Cathedral on Saturday, August 17, at 8pm, with a programme that will include The Planets by English composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) and a newly-commissioned work by Dublin-based composer Tom Lane. His movement, Earth, the Cradle of Life, will complete this suite.

The programme will also feature Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, with rising Cork star Zoë Nagle as soloist.

And there will be a new orchestration of Arnold Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces.

The performance in the Cathedral will feature the 90-piece Esker Festival Orchestra and the Esker Festival Choir, all under the baton of founder and prize-winning conductor Peter Joyce.

The group, which is based in Galway and is made up of members from Ireland and abroad, was set up in 2014 by Peter to provide high-quality, meaningful musical opportunities for emerging young musicians from the West of Ireland and beyond. It continues to support and develop orchestral music by nurturing young people’s talent and helping to allay any financial burdens as regards music.

This orchestra is unique in that it’s run by its members, for its members, Peter explains. As well as playing music together, the members get to socialise and build fruitful relationships which will help them in their professional lives.

Peter is thrilled to be returning to Galway Cathedral, following last summer’s 10th anniversary performances there of Mahler’s Second Symphony.

“I’m delighted that the Esker Festival Orchestra can continue to move not only upwards, but also outwards with this year’s performances of Gustav Holst’s The Planets,” he says.

He’s especially delighted that the group will be premiering Tom Lane’s Earth, the Cradle of Life.

This was commissioned after the orchestra sought anonymised proposals to create a new Earth movement to accompany Holst’s Planets.

Peter is also looking forward to performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with 23-year-old soloist Zoë Nagle, in addition to a new orchestration of Arnold Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces. This celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Schoenberg, whose Five Pieces for Orchestra was one of Holst’s inspiration for The Planets.

As well as presenting the concert in the group’s “spiritual home” of Galway Cathedral, the Esker orchestra is spreading its wings with its inaugural appearance in the National Concert Hall, Dublin. That’s taking place on Sunday, August 18, at 3pm, so there won’t be any time for resting on laurels after the Galway event.

The man behind this musical outfit, Peter Joyce, has enjoyed a varied and successful career as a conductor, composer and instrumentalist, working with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Sofia National Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, Orchestra of the Baden State Theater, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Imelda May, Liam Ó Maonlaí and Hozier, among many others.

Tickets for both concerts are available at www.eskerfestivalorchestra.com.

Tickets for Galway Cathedral on August 17 cost €24 or €12 (concessions). Those for the National Concert Hall on Sunday, August 18, cost €30 or €12 (concessions).