Saturday, October 1
Trakošćan Castle, Knight’s Hall, 11.00 a.m.

Concert accompanied by baroque coffee

Camerata Kilkenny
Claire Duff, baroque violin
Marja Gaynor, baroque violin
Aoife Nic Athlaoich, baroque cello
Malcolm Proud, harpsichord

Programme:

Arcangelo Corelli
Trio Sonata op.3 no.12 in A major
Grave-Allegro-Adagio
Vivace
Allegro-Adagio
Allegro-Adagio
Allegro

Georg Philipp Telemann
Gulliver Suite for 2 violins in D major, TWV 40:108
Intrada-Spirituoso
Lilliputsche Chaconne
Brobdingnagische Gigue
Reverie der Laputier, nebst ihren Aufweckern
Loure der gesitteten Houhnhnms / Furie der unartigen Yahoos

Francesco Geminiani
Sonata no. 3 in e minor for violin and continuo
Adagio
Allegro
Adagio
Tempo Giusto
Adagio
Presto
Adagio
Allegro

Master Taylor
Pavan & Galliard from the Dublin Virginal Book

Tomaso Cecchini
Sonata no. 8 for 2 violins and continuo

George Friedrich Händel
Trio Sonata op. 2 no.1 in C minor
Andante
Allegro
Andante
Allegro

 

About the performer:

Founded by the Irish harpsichordist and organist Malcolm Proud and the Swiss violinist Maya Homburger Camerata Kilkenny gave its début recital at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in August 1999. Since then they have performed at major venues and festivals throughout Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Finland, Belgium, Estonia and Latvia. Guest artists with whom they have worked are violinist Bojan Čičic, oboists Marcel Ponseele and Michael Niesemann, sopranos Maria Keohane, Julia Doyle and Lenneke Ruiten, tenors Mark Padmore and John Elwes, uilleann piper David Power, baroque flautist Wilbert Hazelzet and the Calmus Ensemble of Leipzig. They have been ensemble-in-residence at Kilkenny Arts Festival in Ireland and the CC Maasmachelan Festival in Belgium. Camerata Kilkenny’s CD recordings on the Maya Recordings label include H.I.F. Biber’s Mystery Sonatas with violinist Maya Homburger for which they received a ‘Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik’ Bestenliste award, J.S. Bach’s ‘The Musical Offering with Dutch flautist Wilbert Hazelzet and J.S. Bach Soprano arias and Swedish Folk Chorales with Maria Keohane. On the RTE Lyric FM label they have recorded ‘The Piper and the Fairy Queen’ with Irish uilleann piper David Power. Concerts this Autumn include a programme of music from Georgian Dublin at the Varazdin Festival in Croatia and Bach Cantatas with guest soloists Julia Doyle soprano and Michael Niesemann oboe at the East Cork Early Music Festival in Ireland. In January 2023 Camerata Kilkenny has been invited to the Valletta Baroque Festival in Malta to perform a programme of traditional Irish music alongside music by Telemann, Purcell, Handel and Marini entitled ‘The Piper and the Fairy Queen’ with uilleann piper David Power.

Internationally renowned baroque violinist Claire Duff is in demand as soloist, chamber musician, leader and director. Her ‘stylish solo violin playing’ (Gramophone) has been described as having ‘all the excitement of a high-wire act’ (The Irish Times). Claire is leader of the Irish Baroque Orchestra with which she regularly performs as soloist and often as director, to critical acclaim. As leader Claire has worked with Florilegium, I Fagiolini, English Touring Opera, The King’s Consort and Camerata Kilkenny and co-led the Academy of Ancient Music and The English Concert and has toured Europe, Asia and America extensively with these ensembles. In May she led the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Dmitri Sinkovsky. Claire has an extensive discography, including a highly acclaimed CD of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with Monica Huggett and IBO. In 2016 she was elected Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London (ARAM) for her significant contribution to the music profession. Claire is teacher of baroque violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and she is Artistic Director of the Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra.

Originally from Finland, Marja Gaynor is a Cork-based violinist and viola player. She specialises in Baroque music and plays with various Irish and European ensembles, including the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Camerata Kilkenny, but is also known as a versatile musician at home in many different styles, a fluent improviser, as well as arranger and curator. Upcoming projects include chamber music tours with the Vanbrugh and Solas Quartet and performing and arranging as a trio with uilleann piper David Power and flamenco guitarist John Walsh. Gaynor was Artistic Director of East Cork Early Music Festival 2013-2015 and has also programmed for the Kaleidoscope Night concert series. She teaches violin and chamber music in MTU Cork School of Music.

Dublin born Aoife Nic Athlaoich enjoys a versatile musical career, dividing her time between both modern and Baroque cello. Since moving back to Ireland in 2013 Aoife joined the Irish Chamber Orchestra and has made solo and chamber music debuts at some Ireland’s leading festivals. Aoife is s member of John Eliot Gardiner’s highly acclaimed Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique with whom she has toured the USA and Europe as well as performing at the BBC Proms. Aoife has performed with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, La Serenissima, the Avison Ensemble, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Classical Opera Company and was a member of the London Mozart Players from 2010-2013. Aoife teaches cello at the Cork school of music, the University of Limerick, and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin.

Malcolm Proud won first prize at the Edinburgh International Harpsichord Competition in 1982 after a year of study with Gustav Leonhardt. He is harpsichordist and organist with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Camerata Kilkenny and performs regularly with Chamber Choir Ireland, Resurgam and Sestina. His international career has included playing all six Brandenburg Concertos with Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists at the BBC London Proms and at the Schleswig- Holstein Festival. He has worked also with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, European Union Baroque Orchestra and Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, and he has toured Japan in a production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Mark Padmore in the lead rôle. In November 2018 he curated a series of concerts at the National Concert Hall in Dublin to mark the 350th anniversary of François Couperin’s birth. His recordings include Purcell’s Harpsichord music, Bach’s Six Partitas, the Goldberg Variations and Clavierübung III. He has recorded Brandenburg 5 with both the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the English Baroque Soloists. In April 2022, to celebrate the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, he performed a programme of music by composers living around 1600 who are mentioned in Ulysses In June this year he was a concerto soloist with the Irish Baroque Orchestra under the direction of violinist Bojan Čičic at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford and at Trinity College Chapel in Cambridge. Also in 2022 he performed Book 1 of Bach’s Wohltemperierte Clavier at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, the Kilkenny Arts Festival and the Hugh Lane Gallery (Dublin) to mark the 300th anniversary of the appearance of this seminal work in 1722.