Musicians 2018

KATHERINE HUNKA

Born in London, Katherine Hunka began playing the violin at the age of four. Whilst growing up under the guidance of teacher Sheila Nelson, she performed chamber music at London’s South Bank and the Royal Albert hall, was soloist with the City of London Sinfonia and led the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

Katherine was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where she spent five years studying with Gyorgy Pauk, and then furthered her studies in the USA at Indiana University where she also acted as teaching assistant to her professor, Mauricio Fuks. This instilled in her a great love of teaching. She has since returned to Indiana as a guest
Professor and been made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.

Katherine is Leader of the Irish Chamber Orchestra since 2002 and regularly directs from the leader’s chair. As director and soloist, with the ICO, she has toured Germany, China and Singapore, appeared at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, and more recently, at the Kilkenny Arts Festival. This summer in Kilkenny, she will be co-directing late Beethoven quartets, arranged for string orchestra, with ICO principal cellist, Christian Elliott.

Katherine directs ICO national tours, which take the orchestra all over Ireland. Last year, Katherine released her first solo CD recording with the ICO of Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenes Aires. As part of her role with the ICO, Katherine collaborates with contemporary composers. She has directed premieres with Irish composers including Sam Perkin, Ian Wilson, Raymond Dean, Elaine Agnew, Linda Buckley, and John Kinsella. As leader, she has also enjoyed performing solo concertos and chamber music with Jörg Widmann, Pekka Kuusisto, Anthony Marwood and Nigel Kennedy amongst others. 

Katherine performs regularly, as a chamber musician and soloist, at festivals throughout Ireland and the UK. At the Aldeburgh Festival she premiered Benjamin Britten’s rediscovered Double Concerto. This year sees her at the Sligo International Chamber Music Festival, the Killaloe Chamber Music Festival and performing much of Brahms’ chamber music in the Kilkenny Arts Festival. She is a regular guest to concert venues across Ireland. Last Autumn, she toured Ireland with pianist Finghin Collins playing duo recitals. Her trio, Far Flung with accordionist Dermot Dunne and bassist Malachy Robinson delights audiences with its light-hearted approach, their repertoire spans from
Bach to Klezmer with anything in between. In 2017, Katherine toured with other leaders ofIrish Orchestras; Mia Cooper, Helena Wood and Ioana Petcu. The success of this tour has resulted in another run of concerts later this year, this time in Northern Ireland. 

Katherine has been a guest leader with the Manchester Camerata, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as well as guest soloist with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra and Concert Orchestra. 

She is currently a Professor at the CIT Cork School of Music and the Irish World Academy of Music.

Katherine plays a Jean Baptiste Vuillaume violin and her bows are by Irish maker Gary Leahy.

JOACHIM ROEWER

Born in East Germany, Joachim Roewer graduated from the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” Weimar and the Orchesterakademie of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, having performed frequently with this world class orchestra in Berlin and internationally. During that time he was also principal viola of the International Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado.

In 1994 Joachim Roewer moved to Ireland to become principal viola with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, a position which he has held ever since. 

On numerous occasions he appeared as soloist with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. He performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante alongside violinist Anthony Marwood with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and Berlioz’ “Harold in Italy” with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland.

Since 2006 Joachim Roewer works as Course Director of the annual international ConCorda Chamber Music Course for Strings.
Joachim Roewer is a passionate teacher and a busy chamber music player. He is a member of the Esposito String Quartet and was invited to perform with the Vogler Quartet, the Vanbrugh Quartet and the RTE Contempo Quartet. Since 2013 he is Artistic Director of the Killaloe Chamber Music Festival.

In 2017 Joachim Roewer took on the position of Artistic Director of the MA programme in Classical String Performance at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick.

CHRISTIAN ELLIOTT

Christian Elliott is highly sought after as chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral player. He was appointed Principal Cellist of the Irish Chamber Orchestra in 2016, with whom he has appeared as soloist and as co-director with Katherine Hunka. Christian joined the Zehetmair Quartet in March 2014, with whom he has appeared at Europe's most prestigious venues and music festivals. He has also been a member of the Phoenix Piano Trio since 2014, who have recently recorded the first disc in a series entitled 1840s Leipzig, featuring works by Schumann, Neils Gade, and Mendelssohn. Resident in Edinburgh, Christian is a founding member of the Raeburn Quartet which performs on classical period instruments. He also has regular duo recital partnerships with pianists Robin Green and Robert Thompson. Also a composer, Christian premiered his own string sextet composition at Wigmore Hall in July 2012, commissioned by Steven Isserlis to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Prussia Cove International Musicians' Seminar. Other commissions include a work for the Francoise-Green Piano Duo, and a solo viola work for Ruth Killius featured on her most recent solo 

SHOLTO KYNOCH

Sholto Kynoch is a sought-after pianist who specialises in chamber music and song accompaniment. In addition to a busy performance schedule and fast-growing discography, he is the founder and Artistic Director of the Oxford Lieder Festival.
 
Recent song recitals have included two concerts at Wigmore Hall as part of their complete Schubert survey, the Zeist International Lied Festival in Holland, Palau de la Música in Barcelona, the Opéra de Lille, Kings Place in London, and the Piano Salon Christophori in Berlin. In the coming season Sholto will give recitals at the LIFE Victoria festival in Barcelona, the Heidelberger Frühling festival in Germany, the Zürich Opera House, the Killaloe Festival in Ireland and at numerous venues around the UK. He has performed with singers including Sophie Daneman, Robert Holl, James Gilchrist, Dietrich Henschel, Katarina Karnéus, Wolfgang Holzmair, Jonathan Lemalu, Stephan Loges, Daniel Norman, Joan Rodgers, Kate Royal, Mark Stone, Birgid Steinberger and Anna Stéphany, amongst many others.

Sholto is also the pianist of the Phoenix Piano Trio, with violinist Jonathan Stone and cellist Christian Elliott. The Trio has performed at Wigmore Hall, the Happy Days Festival in Eniskillen, the Leicester International Music Festival, the London Chamber Music Society at Kings Place, and many other venues and festivals.
 
He has recorded, live at the Oxford Lieder Festival, the first complete edition of the songs of Hugo Wolf, with nine of eleven volumes now released. Other recording projects include discs of Schubert and Schumann lieder, the complete songs of John Ireland and Havergal Brian with baritone Mark Stone, a recital disc with Anna Stéphany, and several CDs with the Phoenix Trio.

MIRIAM KACZOR

Miriam Kaczor studied flute with William Dowdall at the RIAM, as well as participating in masterclasses with, amongst others, Sir James Galway, William Bennett, Peter-Lukas Graf and Mark Padmore and spending a semester in the class of Barbara Gisler-Haase in Vienna.

Miriam was the Irish Freemasons’ Young Musician of the Year 2015. She received the RTÉ lyric FM bursary along with the McCullough Cup (Feis Ceoil) in 2017 and 2015 and won the innaugural RDS Jago Award. Since her concerto debut with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in 2015, she has appeared as soloist with the the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Dublin Orchestral Players and the Esker Festival Orchestra. She enjoys playing everything from baroque music on period instruments to premiering works and making peculiar noises in the dark with the Kirkos Ensemble. She has worked with ensembles such as the Vanbrugh Quartet, Crash Ensemble, Ensemble Marsyas and the IBO. She was invited to two projects as a Britten-Pears Young Artist in 2016 and is a founding member of the Westland Wind Quintet who were the featured emerging ensemble at last year's Killaloe Chamber Music Festival.

Miriam is supported by Music Network’s Capital Scheme, funded by the Arts Council and The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. She is also grateful to the RIAM, SDCC, Flax Trust, Tom and Ann Jago, Pierre Blezat and the ever-supportive Bill Dowdall for their help. She is currently studying in London with Michael Cox and Gitte Marcusson (modern flute), Lisa Beznosiuk and Rachel Brown (traverso), aided by the Arts Council Tavel and Training Award.

GERALDINE O' DOHERTY

Geraldine was appointed as Principal Harpist with the RTE Concert Orchestra in 2006 and teaches at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She began the harp with Denise Kelly and went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, continuing advanced studies with the eminent French harpist Catherine Michel at the Hochschule fur Musik, Zurich. During her time there, she won first prize at the Reinl Harp Competition in Munich, the Kiwanis Music Prize and received a Konzertdiplom with distinction. On returning to Dublin, she recorded five critically acclaimed CD's of chamber music for the violin, cello and harp trio, "Reflecting Strings". Geraldine is also a member of the flute, viola and harp trio “Triocca", who toured extensively and recorded their debut CD on the RTE Lyric FM label. Her work with these ensembles has included premieres by John Buckley, Philip Martin, Eric Sweeney, Gerard Victory, James Wilson and Linda Buckley amongst others. Outside of her orchestral role, Geraldine enjoys performing with the Ficino Ensemble, UCD Choral Scholars, and touring regularly with the John Wilson Orchestra.

JONATHAN STONE

Violinist Jonathan Stone is an internationally acclaimed chamber musician, soloist and concertmaster.

His love of chamber music has taken him across the world to great halls such as New York's Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Hamburg Laeiszhalle and, closer to home, regular performances at Wigmore Hall. He has collaborated with artists including Nicolas Altstaedt, Jonathan Biss, Andreas Haefliger, Chen Halevi, Alina Ibragimova, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Anthony Marwood, and Peter Wispelwey.

As a member of the Doric String Quartet, Jonathan has recorded 15 discs for Chandos Records. Future releases include string quartets by Mendelssohn and Haydn as well as John Adams' Absolute Jest for quartet and orchestra with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The quartet are resident at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Jonathan is a founder member of the Phoenix Piano Trio. Renowned for their honest and insightful interpretations which span the entire genre, the Trio will release the first in a series of recordings capturing the intense musical output from Leipzig in the 1840s that connected composers such as Mendelssohn, Schumann and Niels Gade.

Jonathan is dedicated to the art of period performance and regularly guest leads the French orchestra Le Circle de l'Harmonie.

KEVIN JANSSON

A piano student of Mary Beattie and violin student of Ruxandra Petcu Colan (having started with Una Kindlon) at the CIT Cork School of Music, seventeen-year-old Kevin Jansson is emerging as one of the finest musicians of his generation.

In 2016 he was the youngest participant and joint winner of the Prix Thierry Scherz at the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad Festival in Switzerland.  This led to the recording of his solo piano debut CD with the Swiss label Claves, which was released in 2017. In addition to this he received four other first prizes at international competitions in Germany, Serbia and Italy.

Kevin is a Music Ambassador of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

He received ten first prizes at Feis Ceoil in 2015 and 2017.  He was recipient of the National Concert Hall Young Musician’s Award for Strings from 2015 to 2017, and participated in the William Finlay Mentoring Programme for Gifted Pianists run by the Dublin International Piano Competition.

Aged 12 Kevin gave his first piano recital and made his concerto debut at 13 performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor.  In 2017 he performed Dvořák’s 2nd Piano Quintet with the Vanbrugh String Quartet in their final performance as a quartet.  He also made his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Concerti Sinfonietta playing both violin (Mendelssohn) and piano (Beethoven 3rd) concertos.  He has also performed as soloist with CSM Chamber Orchestra, Cork Youth Orchestra, Dublin Symphony Orchestra, Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra and the RTÉ National Concert Orchestra, with whom he will perform again this August at the National Concert Hall, playing Shostakovich’s 2nd Piano Concerto.

He is the current leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, and as leader of the Red Abbey String Quartet he will take part in the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry this summer.

Kevin was an all-Ireland Winner at Fleadh Cheoil na h’Éireann in 2014.  He received the gold medal at the Irish National Physics Olympiad 2016 and a silver medal representing Ireland at the European Union Science Olympiad in Copenhagen in 2017.   

DIANE DALY

Diane is a violinist and has been a member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra since 1998.

She has toured the world with a number of prestigious ensembles including The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, The European Union Chamber Orchestra, and the BBC and Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras.   

In other genres she has performed alongside and recorded with Sir Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, The Corrs, Bono, Shania Twain and Katie Melua. She is currently undertaking an Arts Practice PhD and is the recipient of a scholarship from the Irish Research Council.

MALACHY ROBINSON

Malachy Robinson is a dedicated chamber musician, as passionate about Early Music as he is about New Music. As well as being a founder member of CrashEnsemble he has been principal double-bass with the Irish Chamber Orchestra since 1995. A prizewinning graduate of the Guildhall School of Music, he also holds a Masters’ degree in Historical Musicology from the University of London and has appeared with many period-instrument groups. The quintet Lunfardia led by Argentinean guitarist Ariel Hernandez received four-star reviews from the press for their recordings and his Robinson Panoramic Quartet is challenging the accepted string quartet paradigm. He has collaborated with the Vanbrugh, Callino, Parisii, T'ang, Con Tempo and Vogler String Quartets.

He has worked closely with and premiered pieces by many Irish composers including Kevin O’Connell, Judith Ring and Ian Wilson. His double-bass playing has been described by the Irish Times as "rich in rhetoric" with "rhythmic life” and “unassuming virtuosity" and by the Irish Examiner as "remarkable virtuosity" employing a "variety of timbres". The Classical Review magazine (reviewing in 2012 the album 'Night Music' by the EQ Ensemble) praised his "adroitly lowering, often exquisitely bathetic double bass"!

DAVID HOWES

David Howes is a Baritone from Limerick where he began his studies with Olive Cowpar. David now studies with Robert Dean and is a graduate of the distinguished Young Artist Programme with Northern Ireland Opera.

In opera, David has performed the roles of Jack and Flynn in the world premier of Andrew Synott’s Dubliners. Other roles include those from Rigoletto, Der Schauespieldirektor, Madame Butterfly, la boheme, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Traviata, Silent Night, Tosca, and le nozze di Figaro with companies such as Lyric Opera, OTC, Buxton Opera Festival, Irish National Opera, and Wexford Opera Festival.

Highlights in oratorio include: Baritone solo in Puccini’s Messa Di Gloria and the Bass solos in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Requiems by Saint-Saens, Stanford, Mozart, and Faure, Mozart’s Coronation Mass in C, Haydn's Nelson Mass and The Creation, and Handel's Messiah, Dettingen Te Deum and Dixit Dominus with the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

David has had the privilege of covering the Title Role and Masetto in Don Giovanni (NI Opera) that was directed by Oliver Mears, the newly appointed Artistic Director of The Royal Opera House, and also the Title role in le nozze di Figaro in Irish National Opera’s inaugural production in April 2018. In recent years David has had the honour of partaking in masterclasses with Simon Keenlyside, Sir Thomas Allen, Ian Burnside and Ann Murray.

Future engagements include: Recitals for the Dublin Philharmonic Society in May 2018, and in the Rua Centre, Ballyrowan in late 2018.

DERMOT DUNNE

Accordionist Dermot Dunne began playing the accordion at age of nine with the goal of performing Scott Joplin’s Entertainer. From there things quickly snowballed and before long he found himself playing music which ranged from transcriptions of works by JS Bach to contemporary classical music which had been written for his instrument in recent years. Following a number of years studying at the National Music Academy of Ukraine, he returned to Ireland and has enjoyed a career as a performer over the last twenty years. During this time he has worked with many leading musicians on diverse musical performances. Some of last year’s performances include an improvised accompaniment to a 1926 silent movie with saxophonist Nick Roth, a solo 70 minute original multi-media composition by Ailis ni Riain ‘Skloniste’ performed in London, Paris and Sarajevo, a performance of Romanian folk music with cellist Adrian Mantu and pan-flutist Iulian Pusca in Qatar, recitals with cellist Adele O’Dwyer in Montana, USA, numerous performances with the Far Flung Trio (with Katherine Hunka, violin and Malachy Robinson, Bass) and performances of Donnacha Dennehy’s opera The Last Hotel in Luxembourg. Dermot also teaches at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama

COLIN DUNNE

Colin Dunne is a leading figure in the world of traditional Irish dance. Perhaps best known internationally for his performances and choreography in Riverdance and Dancing on Dangerous Ground, he has been forging a new creative path since his time as artist in residence at University of Limerick where he completed an MA in contemporary dance in 2002. Since then he has worked as an independent performer, choreographer and teacher.

Ensemble works include The Yellow Room (Daghdha Dance Company/Yoshiko Chuma 2003), and The Bull (Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre/Michael Keegan Dolan 2005). For The Bull he was nominated for a UK Critics’ Circle Dance Award in 2007. In 2008 he premiered his first solo show, Out of Time in Glor Theatre, Ennis. The show has since toured internationally at premier festivals and venues in London, New York, Paris, Brazil and Singapore. Out of Time was nominated for a UK Critics’ Circle Award (Best Male Dancer) 2009, and for a Laurence Olivier Award (outstanding achievement in dance) 2010. 

Recent collaborations include; eRikm (What is Ours, Centre National de la Danse, Paris), The Irish Chamber Orchestra/Linda Buckley (The Turn, Fall for Dance Festival New York), Boris Charmatz/Musée de la danse (20 Dancers for the xx century, Tate Modern Museum, London), Edges of Light (with David Power, Maeve Gilchrist and Tola Custy, commissioned by Music Network 2016), and Whitby with Joan Sheehy (Bram Stoker Festival 2017) A new solo work CONCERT, based on the music of Tommie Potts, premiered in Paris in March 2017 and received its Irish premiere at The Dublin Dance Festival in May 2017. CONCERT received a 2018 TG4 Gradam Ceoil Award for music collaboration.

His work as movement director includes; Christ Deliver Us! (Abbey Theatre 2010, directed by Wayne Jordan), and The Risen People (Abbey Theatre 2013, directed by Jimmy Fay). Dunne is the current Traditional Artist in Residence at UCC School of Music for the year 2017/18.

CARDUCCI STRING QUARTET

Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality”, the Carducci Quartet performs over 90 concerts worldwide each year. They also run their own recording label, Carducci Classics; an annual festival in Highnam, Gloucester; and in September 2014, curated their first “Carducci Festival” in Castagneto-Carducci: the town from which they took their name.

Winner of the Concert Artists Guild International Competition 2007 and Finland’s Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition, the Anglo-Irish quartet has appeared at prestigious venues and festivals across the globe including the Wigmore Hall, London; National Concert Hall, Dublin; Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Carnegie Hall, New York; Library of Congress and John F Kennedy Center, Washington D.C; Cheltenham Music Festival; Festival Messiaen au pays Meije; West Cork Chamber Music festival; Kuhmo Festival and Palazzetto Bru-Zane in Venice.

In 2015 the quartet presented the complete catalogue of Shostakovich’s string quartets – commemorating 40 years since the composer’s death – for which they won an RPS Award 2016 in the ‘Chamber Music and Song Category’. Recent and upcoming highlights include performing debuts at The Frick Collection, New York and Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; tours to the USA, Spain, Germany and Scotland. Highly celebrated for their interpretation of contemporary repertoire, the Carducci Quartet is regularly invited to perform new works. They curated projects around Philip Glass and Steve Reich in 2015, as part of the RPS Award winning ‘Minimalist Unwrapped’ at Kings Place London.

ED CREEDON

Ed Creedon enjoys a busy career as a viola player, performing chamber music, as a soloist, and as an orchestral player.

This year he has performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Camerata Ireland and Barry Douglas, returned to the National Concert Hall’s Chamber Music Gathering, and toured internationally with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and Camerata Ireland.

Chamber music highlights include repeat invitations to the Clandeboye and Killaloe festivals, as well as appearances with the Vanbrugh and Piatti string quartets, the Ficino Ensmble and at the Ortús Festival. A member of the Lir String Quartet, currently in its debut season, he has a particular love for the string quartet repetoire, having studied at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival for many Summers.

As a teenager, Ed toured throughout Europe and Asia as a member of the World Youth Orchestra and the European Union Youth Orchestra, and these days he freelances with the RTÉ National Symphony and Concert orchestras.

For many years, Ed studied with Constantin Zanidache in his hometown of Cork. After a threeyear hiatus, he took up his studies again under the guidance of Simon Aspell in 2013. He now lives in Dublin.

CHRISTOPHER MARWOOD

Christopher Marwood graduated from Cambridge Uni versity in 1983 and went on to study at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Conservatorium Maastricht. Cello teachers included Florence Hooton, David Strange, Ralph Kirshbaum, William Pleeth and Radu Aldulescu. His chamber music mentor for several years was Emmanuel Hurwitz. In 1985 Christopher joined the Vanbrugh Quartet and the following year the Vanbrugh won the position of Resident Quartet to RTÉ, based in Cork. Two years later the quartet won the London International String Quartet Competition and an international career quickly followed, taking in more than two thousand concerts throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Over the past twenty-eight years the quartet has collaborated with many of the world’s great artists and has enjoyed invitations to leading festivals and concert venues. The Vanbrugh Quartet has released thirty CDs encompassing a wide range of repertoire, from the complete Beethoven quartets (“fine enough to bear comparison with any set” Fanfare, USA) to many recordings of contemporary Irish quartets, most recently a 2013 release of Deirdre Gribbin’s works for string quartet. They have built up a considerable repertoire including at least sixty Irish works, many of them commissions or premieres. In 2012 Christopher joined ACE, the Royal Irish Academy of Music’s touring chamber ensemble, with whom he plays regularly both in Ireland and abroad. Recent collaborations include performances with pianists John O’Conor, Hugh Tinney, Alexander Berstein and Dearbhla Brosnan, violinists Catherine Leonard, Fionnuala Hunt and Michael d’Arcy, and clarinettist John Finucane. As soloist he has performed the major concerti and given recitals around the UK and Ireland.

Christopher founded the West Cork Chamber Music Festival with Francis Humphrys in 1996 and remains director of the chamber music masterclass programme, an important support for many of Ireland’s young artists over the past fifteen years. He teaches cello and chamber music at Cork School of Music, DIT Conservatory and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

MACDARA Ó SEIREADÁIN

Macdara Ó Seireadáin is a native of Dublin and a First Class Honours graduate of both the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover and Royal Irish Academy of Music and member of the critically acclaimed Dublin-based chamber music group, the Ficino Ensemble.
 
A multiple prizewinner, in 2010 Macdara won the inaugural Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year competition and has performed as a featured soloist with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Uelzen Kammerorchester, Germany.

In 2013 on the personal invitation of Gustav Kuhn, Macdara joined the Orchestra of the Tiroler Festspiel Erl in Austria as principal clarinet. Macdara also performs regularly with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Philharmonisches Orchester Kiel, Staatsoper Hannover, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Camerata Ireland, and is a member of Kammersymphonie Hannover. As both a chamber and orchestral musician he has performed throughout Europe, the US, Canada, China, Chile and most recently completed a fourteen date concert tour of Germany and Lithuania with his chamber music partner Gintaras Januševičius. Future plans include a concert tour of Ireland, Lithaunia, Germany, and Switzerland in the latter half of 2018.

A keen chamber musician, he has performed with John O'Conor, Ailish Tynan, Johannes Peitz, Sharon Kam, and the Apollon Musagete Quartet. In addition to this he is a member of the Dublin-based Ficino Ensemble, who specialize in performing chamber music for mixed ensemble as well as championing rarely heard masterpieces. 

BENSON WILSON

Born in New Zealand, of Samoan descent, baritone Benson Wilson is currently on the opera studies course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Benson was named winner of New Zealand’s premiere singing competition, the Lexus Song Quest, which has also been won by singers such as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Jonathan Lemalu. In 2017 Benson participated in the Georg Solti Accademia where he worked with specialists in the bel canto repertoire such as Maestro Richard Bonynge, Corradina Caporello and Barbara Frittoli and, Benson has also been selected to be a Samling Artist. Over the next year, Benson looks forward to performing Guglielmo from Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” and Demtrius from Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for Guildhall.

MARC ATKINSON

Marc is a New York City based director, originally from Ireland, the UK and Catalonia. Marc co-founded Sugarglass whose work has been presented internationally, including the Irish Premier of Tender Napalm by Philip Ridley (Project Arts Centre Dublin), All Hell Lay Beneath, an immersive adaptation of Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf (Dublin Fringe Festival/Irish Times Cultural Highlight of 2012), Five Minutes Later by Ellen Flynn (The Lir Academy) and, for International Human Rights Day, Ethica: Four Shorts by Samuel Beckett (Krastyo Theatre Bulgaria/Happy Days Festival Enniskillen/Irish Presidential Residence). Recently, Marc directed the tour of Outlying Islands by David Greig (Connelly Theater, New York/Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin), Last Night in Inwood by Alix Sobler (Signature Theater Center, New York), Zelda and Scott by Bethie Fowler (Atlantic Theater Studio, New York) and Chuck Mee’s Big Love (Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin). Assistant Director to Anne Bogart at SITI Company, Joe Murphy and Lisa Dwan at The Old Vic and The Abbey Theatre, and Ivo van Hove at Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Marc was the Associate Director for Selina Cartmell’s inaugural production at The Gate Theatre, The Great Gatsby. Marc was awarded the Jennifer Johnston Directing Bursary and, as Shubert Presidential Scholar, graduated with an MFA from Columbia University in 2016.

Current productions include a new adaptation of Gorky’s Children of the Sun and a production of 10 out of 12 by Anne Washburn, as well as working as the Associate Director for Assassins by Stephen Sondheim at The Gate Theatre.

BRUNDIBÁR - Festival Orchestra - Director, Katherine Hunka

Katherine Hunka (violin), Diane Daly (violin), Siun Milne (violin), Oonagh Keogh (violin), Christian Elliot (cello), Malachy Robinson (double bass), David Szabo (piano),  Miriam Kaczor (flute), Macdara Ó Seireadáin (clarinet), William Palmer (trumpet), Patrick Nolan (percussion),  John O' Shea (guitarist), Dermot Dunne (accordion).

Cantette - Director, Máire Keary-Scanlon

Eimear Greaney; Emma Tracey; Grace Steward; Antoinette Kiely; Luke Nicholas; Aibhe Tierney; Emma Meskell; Daniel Ryan; Laura Haegney; Ailish O' Neill; Mairéad Keary; Melissa Carragher; Rowan Butler; Hazel Butler; Eleanor Collins; Aoibhinn Keogh-Daly; Lucy Allen; Darragh Tracey and Aimée McAlister; Áine Gorham; Ella Carey-Keane; Tara Mooney; Kara Madden; Ella O' Shea; Orna Collins; Lucia Murphy; Maud Nicholas; Seán Keenan; Marcus Murphy; Roan McCaffrey; Louis Murphy; Evan Long; Anna Tracey. 

Brundibár Cast - Stage Director, Marc Atkinson

Brundibár: David Howes; Pepicek: Luke Nicholas; Aninku: Orna Collins; Policeman: Daniel Ryan; Cat: Grace Stewart; Dog: Carl Roewer; Sparrow: Kara Madden; Ice-Cream Seller: Tara Mooney; Baker: Laura Haegney; Milkman: Roan McCaffrey