Three pieces of Irish classical music – which have never previously been performed in the Republic– will be premiered on Saturday, October 5, at the University of Galway’s Emily Anderson Hall.

For the concert, Passerine Night, which starts at 7.30pm, Northern Ireland’s Fews Ensemble will perform Hamilton Harty’s 1904 Piano Quintet in F major and premiere new works by contemporary Belfast composers Ian Wilson and Brian Connor.

This also will be the first time that The Fews Ensemble – created in 2016 under the umbrella of Newry Chamber Music – will give a concert in the West of Ireland. The group promise “a celebration of Irish classical music, past and present, a chance to experience the new and to revive the forgotten”.

County Down composer Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) had a successful career during his lifetime, but in later times his work has been less widely performed. On October 5, the Galway audience will have an opportunity to experience a live performance of his Piano Quintet in F major, Op. 12.

The Fews Ensemble gave this work its first Irish performance in Belfast last year and Galway will be its first outing south of the border.

The ensemble’s Artistic Director, Joanne Quigley McParland describes it as “a fascinating work, full of gorgeous folk-inspired melodies”, while musicologist Professor Jeremy Dibble of Durham University, calls it “a bold, big-boned, passionate work of symphonic proportions”, which “stands happily beside those large-scale Romantic utterances of Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák”.

Meanwhile, Ian Wilson’s 2023 composition Passerine Night, for soprano and ensemble, was inspired by a nightingale’s song he heard in the early nights of lockdown, in 2020.

“I have in mind one specific night: a starlit sky, the absence of human noise, the nightingale singing for hours,” he explains. “I went into the garden and the experience was beautiful, memorable and moving. I wanted to create an artistic response as a reminder that even in the midst of something terrible, something beautiful can be found.”

This performance will be conducted by Claregalway woman Sinéad Hayes, the Britten Pears Young Artist for 2023/24 and conductor of the Royal Irish Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra.

The third premiere will be of Brian Connor’s Three Irish Songs in new arrangements – My Lagan Love, The Month of January and The Star of the County Down. The concert will also feature a performance of Phantasy Trio, by Fermanagh composer Joan Trimble.

Joanne Quigley McParland (violin), Rose Redgrave (viola), Jonathan Aasgaard (cello), Dominic Dudley (double bass), Francesco Paolo Scola (clarinet), David Quigley (piano) and Máire Flavin (soprano) are the principal players with The Fews Ensemble. Variously from Ireland, Britain and Europe, all have international careers performing either with orchestras or solo.

As the Fews Ensemble, their concerts include commissions by Irish composers and chamber version arrangements of larger-scale orchestral works. The group specialise in projects that fuse artistic genres and have worked with actor Ciarán Hinds on several projects, including a sell-out, acclaimed run of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale at Dublin’s Smock Alley in 2022.

Tickets for their Galway concert are €20/18 plus booking fee from ticketsource.eu.

Pictured: Soprano Máire Flavin with fellow members of the Fews Ensemble. The group will be in Galway on October 5.