National String Quartet Young Artists Summer Tour

 

Dear Subscribers NSQF Young Artists Summer Tour I - MELIORA QUARTET This week, the brilliant young Meliora Quartet plays in Castletownshend, Kenmare, Cork and Doneraile. Book now at the links below! MELIORA QUARTET Cillian Ó Cathasaigh, violin Seán Hurley, violin Kseniia Yershova, viola Alina Obreja, cello CASTLETOWNSHEND - Thursday 6th August at 8pm - St Barrahane’s Church - presented by Barrahane Music KENMARE - Friday 7th August at 6pm - Carnegie Arts Centre CORK - Saturday 8th August at 1pm - Triskel Arts Centre (Shaw, Webern, Beethoven) DONERAILE - Sunday 9th August at 3pm - Doneraile Court - presented by OPW Haydn - String Quartet Op.76 No.4 Sunrise [1797] Webern: Langsamer Satz [1905] Caroline Shaw - Blueprint [2016] Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet in B flat major Op.130 [1826] The Meliora Quartet took part in the Young Musicians Programme at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in June/July and ahead of this tour they are working as NSQF Fellowship Quartet at the Concorda Chamber Music Course in Limerick, working with the course participants as well as preparing for this tour. The Sunrise is perhaps the most popular of all Haydn’s wonderful string quartets. Each of its four movements is vividly characterised - the first evoking the rising of the sun, the second prayerful, the third presenting a wild dance and the finale creating imaginative variations around a simple folksong-like theme and building to a virtuosic conclusion. Webern’s ‘Langsamer Satz’ (slow piece) is a beautiful and passionate love song to his future wife, written in the rich late Romantic soundworld of his teacher Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht. Pulitzer prize winning composer Caroline Shaw took Beethoven’s quartet Op.18 No.6, as the blueprint of her 2016 quartet of that name and its transformation is both fascinating and entertaining. The magnificent opening movement of Beethoven’s B flat major quartet Op.130 is followed by four beautifully crafted and highly contrasted inner movements, culminating in the famous Cavatina of which Beethoven wrote that he had composed it truly in the tears of melancholy. It leads into the quartet’s concluding finale, a good-natured antidote which Beethoven wrote, at his publisher’s request, as an alternative to the quartet’s original last movement, the massive Grosse Fuge. NSQF Young Artists Summer Tour II - AURELIAN ENSEMBLE August 27-29 Our summer focus on the next generation of musicians continues with performances of Schubert's magnificent octet by the Aurelian Ensemble. AURELIAN ENSEMBLE Anna Jansson, violin Kate O’Shea, violin Charlie Duff, viola Adam Joyce, cello Jekabs Brants, clarinet Carl Roewer, bassoon Róisín Martin, horn Zosia Switaj, double bass The Aurelian Ensemble is a new Chamber Music Collective, founded out of a shared love for Franz Schubert’s monumental Octet in F Major — a work whose warmth, lyricism, and symphonic scale have inspired musicians and audiences for generations. Written in 1824 and modelled in part after Beethoven’s Septet, the Octet expands the possibilities of chamber music with sweeping melodies, rich textures, and extraordinary interplay between the eight performers. These performances celebrate Schubert’s Octet as the piece that has brought these eight dynamic young musicians - from a variety of backgrounds and all high achievers in their own right - together for their inaugural tour. KILLALOE - Thursday 27th August at 7.30pm - St. Flannan’s Cathedral - donations in aid of the Restoration Fund KENMARE - Friday 28th August at 6pm - Carnegie Arts Centre CORK - Saturday 29th August at 1pm - Triskel Arts Centre For details of both these tours, please see https://nsqf.ie/summer-2026 AUTUMN CONCERT SEASON STARTS SEPTEMBER 9th 53 concerts, 9 quartets, 36 venues and a fantastic range of great music! See https://nsqf.ie/autumn-2026 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks and sincere appreciation to our funders, sponsors and co-presenters, the Arts Council, RTÉ Lyric FM, the National Concert Hall, University College, Cork, MTU Cork School of Music, Cork City Council, Cork County Council, many private donors, and all the venues and promoters we work with around the country.  with best wishes, Chris Find Out More