Music to our ears!

By Finnian Cox

Those behind the successful Ortús Chamber Music Festival have described its 10 year anniversary as both a joyful and surreal experience.

Co-founders Sinéad O’Halloran and Mairéad Hickey announced the event’s upcoming birthday will be celebrated through a concert on 10 November. The show set to take place in Munster Technological University’s Curtis Auditorium at 3pm.

“We were just two teenagers with great dreams of what we could build, without much idea of what we were getting ourselves into,” said Ms O’Halloran, who is now a celebrated celloist.

However, they evidently succeeded, something Ms O’Halloran attributes to the large support the people of Cork showed for the festival.

“It’s enabled us to present over 70 high quality concerts around Cork and bring some of the world’s best musicians to our hometown,” she said.

Both O’Halloran and Hickey will be involved in the performance, with O’Halloran on the cello and Hickey providing violin.

They each have numerous credits, with Hickey performing as a soloist for a number of orchestras, with the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra among them.

Additionally, she held the role of concertmaster for the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire from 2021 to 2023. The concert will see O’Halloran and Hickey joined by violist Ed Creedon and pianist Gary Beecher, with a wine reception to follow the concert.

The quartet will perform Beethoven’s variations on ‘Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen’ for cello and piano, Dohnanyi’s Serenade in C major for string trio and Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor.

The concert comes ahead of the 2025 edition of the festival, which kicks off on 23 February, and will see performances in Blackrock Castle, Dripsey Castle Estate, UCC Aula Maxima and more.

The festival will see further performances by O’Halloran, where she will be joined by fellow members of the award-winning Marmen quartet.

Additionally, there will be performances of more contemporary pieces from Irish music ensembles such as Lucia and Maria, as well as Strung, who mix elements of classical music with traditional Irish sounds.

In a statement, thanks were given to Ortús’ numerous supporters, such as the Arts council, as well as Cork city and county councils.