Irish and international guest musicians will join the Vogler Quartet for the third ESB Vogler Spring Festival at Drumcliffe this weekend. The festival includes eight concerts over four days.
The Vogler String Quartet was appointed quartet-in-residence in Sligo in 1999 in a music development project, which also involves education programmes for young people. This year's guest ensemble is the Vienna Piano Trio, who will play with German clarinettist, Jorg Widmann, in a late-night performance on Saturday of Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour le fin du temps.
Other guest musicians include Bruno Schneider from Switzerland, Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov, and Czech mezzo-soprano Dagmar Peckova. Irish violinist Catherine Leonard and Ronan Dunne on double bass will also be performing. The programme features familiar masterpieces from composers such as Haydn and Mozart, 20th century masters Debussy and Ravel, and new writing by Irish composers Kevin O'Connell and Stephen Gardner. Sligo County Council's arts office can be contacted on 071-40985.
In Ardara, in Co Donegal, the "Cup of Tae" traditional music festival takes place this weekend. It includes a fiddle school and a flute school and the showing of a documentary on the music of John "The Tae" Gallagher, who won the All-Ireland Oireachtas fiddle championships. There will also be concerts by well-known musicians and a barn dance.