The new and the old will constitute the major attractions at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry this year writes Michael Dervan. The Arditti String Quartet, specialists in contemporary repertoire (who were recently awarded the 250,000 DM, (worth about £19,000, 128,000 euros) Siemens Music Prize) will feature Xenakis, Ferneyhough, Ligeti, Schnittke and MacMillan (as well as some Schoenberg and Beethoven). On period instruments the Quatuor Mosaiques will offer Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and, in partnership with forte-pianist Patrick Cohen, a piano quintet by Boccherini.
The festival, which runs from Sunday, June 27th, to Sunday, July 4th, is busier than ever - more than 30 concerts - with an extended series of master classes and a new midday concert slot. "I couldn't resist the idea of doing concerts in the Gobelin Drawing Room [in Bantry House]" says festival director Francis Humphrys. "It has spectacular views over the bay and, unlike the library where the other concerts are held, it gets flooded with light." With just 90 places, he says, it's a venue even more intimate than the library.
Festival residents this year will include the French wind octet Octuor Paris-Bastille, soprano Patricia Rozario, pianists Joanna MacGregor, left, (who will play John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano) and Hugh Tinney, violinist Catherine Leonard, the Parnassus Trio and, of course, the RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet. At the heart of the festival is a concert in Bantry's Church of Ireland church with Mozart's Serenade for 13 wind instruments and Villa-Lobos's Bachianas brasileiras No 5, for soprano and eight cellos. The festival's major supporter remains RTE. The total budget is £188,000, toward which the Arts Council has provided revenue funding of just £20,000, or exactly the same as the British Council is stumping up to support this year's British involvement. Ticket prices range from £3 to £22, and full festival details can be had from tel: 027-61576.
