A week-end of music in Galway - East meets West

Noriko Ogawa, piano and The Lotus String Quartet

Noriko Ogawa

On March 1, 2 and 3 Music for Galway will present a weekend of events focussing on musicians and music from Japan and bringing together the Lotus String Quartet and the pianist Noriko Ogawa for the first time. There will be three concerts featuring the performers in separate recitals for piano and string quartet and also together as a piano quintet. The programmes will also highlight the evocative music of Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), Japan's most famous modern composer. A documentary film dealing with Takemitsu's film music will be shown on Saturday at lunchtime in association with Galway Film Society, providing an excellent background to his unique approach to composition. A special guest at the Friday night concert will be the Second Secretary and Cultural Attaché of the Japanese Embassy, Mr. Shin Ogawa and members of the Irish Japanese Society will also be attending.

On Friday 1 March 8.00pm Noriko Ogawa's programme in the Aula Maxima, NUI Galway at 8.00pm will include Debussy's Preludes Book 1, Prokofiev's Sonata No.7 and music by Japanese composers Taki and Takemitsu. The concert is sponsored by National University of Ireland, Galway. Noriko Ogawa is returning to Galway for her third recital in the past three years, having proven a popular and inspiring artist on previous visits both as a soloist and with the Clarion Horn Trio.

Toru Takemitsu (1930 - 1996)

Music for the Movies - Toru Takemitsu the award winning documentary by Charlotte Zwerin, (US/Japan/France) will be screened on Saturday 2 March 1.00-2.00pm in the Cairnes Theatre (beside Bank of Ireland) NUI, Galway. In addition to hundreds of works for the concert platform, Takemitsu has written the music for over 90 films, many of them award winning scores. The film includes interviews with Takemitsu and leading Japanese directors, film fragments and shots of the composer's method of working. Made in 1994, it won an Astrolabium Award for Best Documentary on International Electronic Cinema Festival.

The Lotus String Quartet will make their Galway debut on Saturday 2 March 8.00pm in the Aula Maxima, NUI, Galway in a recital sponsored by Brennan's Yard Hotel, Galway. Formed in 1992 in Japan, the Lotus String Quartet are acclaimed as the most exciting quartet to have emerged from Japan in recent years. They were awarded the Menuhin Prize at the London International String Quartet Competition in 1996/97. Since 1995 they have been based in Stuttgart and tour extensively in Europe and Asia. While this is their first appearance in Galway, the Lotus Quartet undertook a 12 concert tour of Ireland for Music Network in October 2000, including Jane O'Leary's quartet Mystic Play of Shadows in their programme. The have recorded works by Mozart and works by Japanese composers on two CDs.

Lotus String Quartet

The Lotus Quartet open their performance with music from the Classical Period - Beethoven's early String Quartet, Op. 18 no. 2. Czech composer Antonin Dvorák wrote his late quartet, the American during a stay in America and it is now one of his best known and most popular compositions. The tiny Bagatelles of Anton Webern, written in 1913, introduce the concept of silence and concentrated expression, factors also evident in Takemitsu's quartet, Landscape of 1960. Takemitsu describes his music: Silence bordered with a necklace of sounds.

The final concert will be on Sunday 3rd March at 3.00pm (please note time) in the Aula Maxima NUIG. In a unique partnership, the Lotus Quartet join with Noriko Ogawa to perform two of the finest piano quintets in the repertoire: Robert Schumann's romantic Piano Quintet Op.44, full of melodic passages, and Shostakovich's intensely moving work for piano and strings, the Piano Quintet Op.57. The programme also includes a performance of the work which Music for Galway commissioned a year ago: Jane O'Leary's piano quintet Apart/Together. First performed last February by the RTE Vanbrugh Quartet and pianist Robert Taub, the work can now be heard again in the hands of a new group of performers. Listeners can also tune into Lyric fm on Wednesday 27 February at 9:15pm for a broadcast of the first performance.

Tickets for the weekend's events are available in Mulligan, Middle Street Galway 091 564961 and Music for Galway 091 705962. Concerts €13/€10/€7.50; Film €3; Weekend ticket €35/25/20.

Related Links

• Music for Galway
  http://www.musicforgalway.ie/