Cassiopeia Winds, Ireland’s top wind players ensemble, will be visiting Westmeath during their first ever tour. The Irish Chamber wind quintet includes players from the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra and the Crash Ensemble.
The concert will be held in Tullynally Castle on Saturday 14 November and will be the second in a five stop tour starting in Birr Theatre, Co. Offaly.
The group have performed across the country as well as completing a tour of Dublin churches, concerts at the the Music for Wexford Concert Series and Waterford Music. They also had a day-long residency at the RTE Lyric Fm stage at the Bloom Festival in Dublin and performed a weekend of concerts as part of the New Ross Piano Festival in September 2014.
Karina Lundstrom, from Lundstrom Arts Management, told Topic that David Taylor, Chairperson of Derravargh Music Associaiton (DMA), heard the group perform at the 2014 New Ross Piano Festival and immediately invited them to perform a concert as part of the DMA’s 2015/2016 season at the Tullynally Castle.
Ms Lundstrom said, “The group have been around for five years but this is the first time they have actually gone on tour. They are five of the top win players in the country. They are a very busy lot so that’s why the tour is rather spread out in order to find dates that they are all together.”
To mark the occasion the group (with financial aid from the Arts Council) has commissioned a new piece by top Irish composer John Buckley which will receive its first performance on the tour.
“They’ve been working very hard over the last couple of months on the piece that John has written for them. He was approached by the quintet this time last year about doing the piece. One of the first pieces he ever wrote was for a wind quintet almost 40 years ago so he was very interested in doing it. He wrote the whole piece with them in mind and with their input and they were involved in the creative process.”
The concert will be held on Saturday 14 November at 8pm in Tullynally Castle, Castlepollard
Tickets are €20. For further information call 044 9666344 or email loughbawn@eircom.net.
