...Antarctica calling...listen...

Date: Sunday 23rd April

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: Main Stage, National Concert Hall

Tickets €28 (€10 Concessions)

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RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Gavin Maloney, conductor
Isabelle O’Connell, piano

Brett Dean Testament (2008)

Karen Power ...Antarctica calling...listen... (2023) [World Premiere]
Kevin Volans Piano Concerto No. 4b (2016/2023) [World Premiere, revised version]

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Join the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as they present a striking programme that examines humanity’s fragile relationship with nature, including two world premieres.

Opening this concert, Brett Dean’s Testament is a stark depiction of Beethoven’s anguish as he began to fall deaf, becoming alienated from the world around him. This is followed by Kevin Volans’s high-energy Piano Concerto No. 4b, with ‘Irish piano phenom’ (The New Yorker) Isabelle O’Connell and an orchestra including five midi pianos in surround sound. The evening ends with Karen Power’s bold new commission inspired by a research trip to the South Pole—a gripping evocation of Antarctica’s wild and remote landscape, incorporating live performance, recorded audio and stunning visuals.

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Projected photographs by John Godfrey

Karen Power’s …Antarctica calling…listen… is a co-commission by RTÉ Concert Orchestra and New Music Dublin.

Supported by an Irish Arts Council Arts Grant

Kevin Volans’ Piano Concerto No. 4b commissioned by New Music Dublin, with the financial assistance of the Arts Council of Ireland.