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The 2010 Ensemble Avalon Winter Chamber Festival, our third consecutive annual event in our festival home of Wexford, Ireland, will now be taking place in May 2011! Due to take place in early December 2010, the festival was unavoidably postponed due to snow and bad weather. We are delighted to announce the new dates as being 13th-15th May 2011 and extend a warm welcome to our two very special internationally renowned guests, soprano Patricia Rozario and violinist Michael D'Arcy who will be joining us in presenting a richly varied programme around the work of Schubert and Shostakovich. Our featured Irish composer this year is Benedict Schlepper-Connolly whose work for piano trio 'A Space of Life Between' was commissioned specially for this festival.
Click here to be redirected for further information on venues, times and programme details.
As of January 2011 Ensemble Avalon are proud to be Ensemble-in-Residence at Trinity College Dublin, the first such residency of its kind in the history of the Trinity Music Department. A combination of workshops, coaching, open rehearsals and performances formed an exploratory three-session pilot project in early 2009 when we met and worked with Trinity composition, musicology and instrumental students, each of the three sessions culminating in our giving a public performance in the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. The above elements have since evolved into a full-scale project which will also encompass outreach work and collaborative performances. Our partners are Trinity College Dublin, the Hugh Lane Gallery and the National Concert Hall, with particular thanks to our sponsors APT Ireland for making this exciting new project a reality.
To see what the press said about the 2009 Hugh Lane Gallery performances click here to visit our reviews page
'...sunlit playing...' the Strad (click here to read the full review)
'...an impressive launch by a progressive group...' Sunday Business Post (click here to read the full review)
'...a welcome debut by three outstanding Irish musicians...the brilliance of their playing should lead to many more outstanding performances and recordings...' Sir Arnold Bax Website (click here to read the full review)
Beethoven, Bax and Bernstein are the three featured composers on our debut CD, we spent some time in the recording studio in late February 2008 putting it all together with producer Jonathan Allen of Abbey Road in London and the resulting disc is available on the RTÉ Lyric fm label with the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland and Music Network. The CD is currently in the shops, you can also purchase it online at www.amazon.co.uk.
Following a successful and critically-acclaimed national tour in 2007 we were invited to join the Music Network artist roster and subsequently enjoyed our first major collaboration together, the Ensemble Avalon 2008 Spring Tour of Ireland. The tour began in Carlingford and we worked our way around the country before finishing up in the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray. In 2009 the tour took place in May with a series of performances that featured works by Schubert, Schoenfield and Beethoven as well as a contemporary Irish work. The next tour is currently planned for January 2011, details to follow. For up-to-date performance information, click here to have a look at our myspace page.
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