Migrations String Quartet Weekend

This exciting weekend of music brings together distinguished artists and ensembles from around Europe, to present an immersive and thought-provoking musical journey into some of the finest music written for the string quartet. Entitled Migrations, the weekend demonstrates and celebrates the emotional power, impact and intimate beauty of the string quartet extending over eight concerts, as well as talks, masterclasses and more.

Alongside works by some of Europe’s most progressive and notable composers of the 18th, 19th, 20th century the weekend also features works written by four of today’s highly respected composers bringing into focus current world issues, such as the historical fate of displaced people and of those coming to terms with the changing face of Europe and the world we live in today. 

"the weekend demonstrates & celebrates the emotional power, impact & intimate beauty of the string quartet"

Charlotte Bray’s Ungrievable Lives receives its Irish première, responding to the weight and seriousness of the current migration crisis; Mark Anthony Turnage’s Split Apart, is born of the composer’s despair and anger at the outcome of the Brexit referendum; Jonathan Dove’s In Damascus, is a harrowingly vivid setting of verses by Syrian poet Ali Safar with the indiscriminate war in Syria and the suffering of its people as its subject, and Valentin Silvestrov’s String Quartet No. 3 is a substantial work that contains Irish accents and some simple ideas that reflects the composer’s enthusiasm for Ireland, the historical fate of which reminds him of his native country 
of Ukraine