The Four Seasons Chamber Music Series: Four Seasons

Lynda O’Connor, violin
Anamus string ensemble

Vivaldi, Four Seasons (41’)
INTERVAL (10’)
Ailbhe McDonagh, Irish Four Seasons (22’)

Four Seasons Chamber Music Series: inviting audiences on a journey through the seasons, with music exploring themes of light and shadow, water and ice, and the passing of time.

Acclaimed solo violinist, Lynda O’Connor, and her new ensemble, Anamus, close the Four Seasons chamber music series with Vivaldi’s eponymous work, and Ailbhe McDonagh’s ‘Irish Four Seasons’. A mix of baroque virtuosic performance and traditional Irish fiddle-playing, this concert promises a captivating celebration of nature, and colour, as we travel through the seasons.

Vivaldi’s seminal work, the Four Seasons consists of four concertos for solo violin and string ensemble. The piece is famously programmatic in nature, with onomatopoeic representations of wind, birds, snow, and ice that have been enchanting audiences for centuries.

Ailbhe McDonagh’s Irish Four Seasons was commissioned by Lynda O’Connor in 2022 as a companion piece to Vivaldi’s monumental opus, in O’Connor’s album released in 2024. Mirroring Vivaldi’s structure, the piece exists in four movements: Earrach (Spring), Samhradh (Summer), Fómhar (Autumn), and Geimhreadh (Winter). A stark juxtaposition of Vivaldi’s familiar melodies alongside new Irish airs, this piece reminds us of the similarities of baroque and traditional Irish performance – both with heavy ornamentation, strong melodic emphasis, and close-knit ensemble playing – and Lynda O’Connor straddles both genres seamlessly.

“Among an abundance of recorded interpretations of the Vivaldi concertos, O’Connor’s captures something of the immediacy and visceral nature of these programmatic works. The album’s inclusion of McDonagh’s concerto should help to further the appreciation of her music.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2024

Ailbhe McDonagh is a widely commissioned and celebrated Irish composer with a breadth of works written for orchestra, chamber music and solo instruments. Her debut orchestral work ‘Irish Isles Suite’ was recorded and released by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in 2023. Some notable commissions include her String Quartet No. 1 for the Appalachian Chamber Music Festival, USA, and an eight hand piano work for the opening of the Whyte Recital Hall at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. She has released several collections of her pedagogical music through publishers, Boosey & Hawkes, notably the popular book series ‘It’s a Piano Thing’ (2017) and ‘It’s a Cello Thing’ (2021). Ailbhe’s latest collection of pedagogical books titled ‘It’s a Violin Thing’ will be published in 2025.

Lynda O’ Connor is one of the greatest Irish violinists of her generation. Her soloist career has included many memorable performances including Mozart Sinfonie Concertante with Nobuko Imai and Bach Double Violin Concerto with Chee Yun Kim alongside Camerata Ireland. As a chamber musician, Lynda has collaborated with a dazzling array of artists including Barry Douglas, John O Connor, Michael McHale, Finghin Collins, Alessio Bax, Celine Byrne, Fionnuala Hunt and members of the Vanbrugh string quartet. Lynda is a full time/founding member of several chamber ensembles including Ficino chamber ensemble, classical/traditional crossover group, Trio Elatha, and today’s performers, Anamus, which Lynda founded in order to perform Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and McDonagh’s ‘Irish Four Seasons’ on her debut solo album in 2024.

O’Connor and McDonagh have been friends and chamber music partners for over 20 years.

Presented by NCH