New Ross Piano Festival
September 22nd - 25th, 2011
If you've never been you should know that this is not just one classical concert, but a weekend crammed with them. That's what you get at the New Ross Piano Festival. And this year, 2011, we have had something very special. It was a two-piano festival with two fabulous Steinway Ds and equally fabuous performers.
Our pianists included Enrico Pace with Igor Roma, Kathryn Stott with Noriko Ogawa, and Charles Owen with Katya Apekisheva. Together with our Artistic Director, Finghin Collins, young Irish pianist Fiachra Garvey and a small chamber group the programme was very exciting, balanced and varied. Impossible to pick out highlights.....the late-night "Rite of Spring" pleased a lot of people; the free "Culture Night" "Carnival of the Animals" and William Tell for eight hands pleased others; the seriously incredible Bartok for two pianos and two percussionists amazed us all, the Debussy "Images" and the Takemitsu "Raindrops" were a delicate contrast to the fire of Ravel's "La Valse" and the Liszt "Concerto Pathetique". And so on....and on.....for four days of wonderful music-making and the resulting warm, enthusiastic audiences.
In addition to the classical concerts there were five "play me" pianos in public places, free al fresco jazz piano sessions outsdie the theatre, a superb "Carnival of the Animals" outreach concert repeated twice for local primary and second-level students. This was done in collaboration with the National Concert Hall and Barry McGovern was the narrator. We also had a packed public masterclass for two advanced students who had won the Finlay scholarship, - the four of them were here for the weekend, page-turning and generally helping the professionals.
All of this happened in the small town of New Ross in the South East of Ireland, central to Waterford Airport and Rosslare Harbour, and the towns of Wexford, Waterford and Kilkenny. Don't miss it next year. Keep an eye on this website for further news in the early spring.
If you want to see what we do - what type of festival we are - you can download the 2011 New Ross Piano Festival Programme here, or check our Archive Section
This year's reviews will be put up shortly, - in the meantime last year's are below.
Jeremy Hill, writing in the papers last year, opined that "this piano festival now ranks in quality and imaginative organisation and programming with any other event of its like around the world. Its uniquely personal atmosphere is engendered by the superb location and acoustic quality of St. Mary’s Church. A dedicated volunteer and amateur committee deserves the sweetest smelling bouquet of bright and colourful flowers for they present an unequalled opportunity for music lovers to engage with the genius of world class piano playing."
Reviews were also written in the UK music magazines Gramophone, International Piano and Classical Music. Read them all in our Reviews Section, and in the July issue of BBC Music Magazine, where Daniel Jaffe gives a very accurate account of the feel of the festival and the area.
