National Symphony Orchestra with the National Symphony Chorus: Bodley, Feery and Cleare
Date: Friday 21st April
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Main Stage, National Concert Hall
Tickets €28
National Symphony Orchestra
National Symphony Chorus
Frauke Aulbert, soprano
Michelle O’Rourke, mezzo-soprano
Eoghan Desmond, baritone
Dermot Dunne, accordion
David Brophy, conductor
David Young, chorus director
MIDHE
Justine Cooper, visual direction
Annemarie Ní Churreáin, poetry
Michelle O’Rourke and David Young, vocal development & collaborators
Seóirse Bodley A Small White Cloud Drifts Over Ireland (1975)
Amanda Feery My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2022) [World Premiere]
Ann Cleare MIDHE (2023) [World Premiere]
Presenting visions of Ireland and taking time to reflect, this performance from the National Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Chorus features two major Irish world premieres.
The programme opens with Seóirse Bodley’s kaleidoscopic A Small White Cloud Drifts Over Ireland, celebrating the composer’s 90th birthday. Amanda Feery’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, completed in 2022 as the pandemic began to recede, sits at the centre of the evening’s programme, which culminates with MIDHE: a major new commission from Ann Cleare. Performed by solo voices, accordion, choir and orchestra, MIDHE invokes the Midlands of Ireland and – through the movement of sound and bodies throughout the entire concert hall space – reanimates a lost centre, offering fascinating new perspectives on what power and collectivity might mean.
