FOLLOWING the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s Traveling with Mozart tour, the orchestra is back on the road in early June with Guitar Man featuring the incredible Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe.
ICO visits University concert hallLimerick, Town Hall Theatre, Galway, The Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal and Castletown House, Co. Kildare (in association with the Dublin International Chamber Music Festival) on 9, 10, 11 and 12 June respectively.
Sean Shibe is the first guitarist to be selected for the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists programme, the first to receive a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and the first guitarist to receive the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Young Artists.
Shibe is committed to the music of the great masters of the past and continues to expand his instrument’s repertoire by designing imaginative programs featuring new music and commissions.
His music is masterful, beautiful and compelling in every way.
This is Shibe’s second ICO release and he has selected two stunning guitar works that span centuries. Vivaldi’s popular Concerto in D major transcribed for guitar is followed by Malcolm Arnold’s stunningly beautiful Serenade for guitar and strings. Here the guitar plays over muted strings, alternating the dreamy theme with more energetic passages. ICO violinists Katherine Hunka and Nicola Sweeney enjoy joyful musical conversation in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins Op.3, No.8, one of his sunniest works.
From old to new, the ICO immerses itself in Dave Fennessy’s sensory Rosewood, a nostalgic work that reminds the composer of his connection to his guitar. Dvořák’s charming two waltzes 1 and 4 are original, nostalgic and loud from his set of 8 waltzes.
Finally, Elgar’s masterpiece Introduction and Allegro is exhilarating and reminiscent of a multi-layered symphonic poem for string orchestra, with multiple themes as ICO shows.