Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Galway’s Esker Festival Orchestra, made up of members from all over Ireland, will present three concerts in Galway City this August.

The first will be in St Nicholas’s Collegiate Church on Monday, August 18, when the Festival Orchestra and Choir will perform Haydn’s magnum opus The Creation.

That performance, at 8pm, will feature solo vocalists Deirdre Higgins, Cathal McCabe and David Kennedy from the Irish National Opera Studio. As with the other concerts, it will be conducted by the orchestra’s founder Peter Joyce.

For the second concert, on Thursday, August 21, the Esker Orchestra will present the wonderful Kandinsky Quartet, its first ever quartet in residence.

That event will be at the University of Galway’s Emily Anderson Concert Hall and will feature works by Mozart, short pieces by Shostakovich, a beautiful contemporary work by American composer Caroline Shaw and Ravel’s Quartet in F. The Kandinsky Quartet, founded in Vienna in 2020, is quickly gaining a reputation across Europe for its performances.

The Esker Orchestra will return to St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church on Saturday, August 23, for the last of this season’s concerts.

That performance will feature masterworks, including Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, Igor Stravinsky’s 1919 Firebird Suite and Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration. The world premiere of a new work for orchestra after WB Yeats’ play, Purgatory, by prize-winning composer, conductor and Esker Festival Orchestra founder Peter Joyce will also be performed.

Peter set up this orchestra in 2014 to offer quality musical opportunities to young, emerging musicians from the West of Ireland and beyond. It supports these talented youngsters and works to minimise their financial burdens. The unique orchestra is led by and run by its members.

The musicians perform and work together, having opportunities to socialise and build fruitful working relationships.

Peter’s own love of music began in childhood. He first began playing the saxophone aged 11 and grew up performing jazz locally with the Black Magic Big Band. At 15, he began travelling to Dublin from his home in Esker to study clarinet and saxophone with Ciaran Wilde, and later clarinet with Fintan Sutton at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

While studying music at Trinity College Dublin, he began composing, arranging and conducting. After graduating, he studied conducting with Dr Geoffrey Spratt at the CIT Cork School of Music.

Peter went on to study conducting and composition at the renowned University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

As a conductor, composer and instrumentalist, he has worked with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Sofia National Philharmonic, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, Orchestra of the Baden State Theater, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Imelda May, Liam Ó Maonlaí and Hozier, among others.

He’s currently assistant conductor and a member of the Irish National Opera Studio, and in February, was a finalist in the International Mauricio Kagel Composition Competition.

“We are so excited to continue to expand on the level and amount of concerts we are able to perform in Galway each summer, bringing real meaning to the festival aspect of our name,” says Peter.

People can buy tickets for individual shows, or enjoy all performances for a special rate of €60. This will include an exclusive performance by members of the Esker Festival Orchestra on Friday, August 22. For tickets and more information, go to www.eskerfestivalorchestra.com.

Pictured: The Esker Festival Orchestra conducted by its founder Peter Joyce.