Music lovers were offered cocktails and "a Swiss composer sandwich" at a select concert this week. Sonatas by Bach, Burkhard, and Bach again, were performed in the Swiss embassy by visiting musicians Annette Bartholdy on viola and Sophia Rahman on piano.
The cold and rain didn't deter visitors to the residence of Eric Pfister, Switzerland's ambassador to Ireland.
Frank Casey, chairman of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the National Chamber Choir, came along with his wife, Alison Casey. It's a busy few weeks for the orchestra and the choir currently, he said, mentioning this week's opera season at the Gaiety Theatre and the fact that both the choir and the orchestra are preparing to perform Handel's Messiah in University Hall, Limerick on Thursday, Dec- ember 13th, before they hit Dingle and Ennis later the same week to repeat the great work.
Composer Gerry Murphy, who teaches music at Gonzaga College and was recently presented with an ASTI achievement award for his contribution to Irish music, was there too. He's currently writing a piece, Five Locks on the Barrow (which, forward planners will want to note, is scheduled to open the Waterford Music Club season in October 2003).
"Zdrasth-wit-yee," which is Russian for hello, said the fluent Murphy, saluting the Russian ambassador, Evgueni Mikhailov, as he passed.
The Austrian ambassador, Gerd Dⁿckelmann Dublany, with his wife, Karin, also attended. Bernard Clarke, a Lyric FM presenter, (tune in at 9 a.m. today to hear his reviews of new CDs) was there too. Christine O'Neill, a Swiss national who is married to calligrapher Tim O'Neill, is currently working on the papers of the Joycean scholar, Niall Montgomery, who died in 1987, she says.
After the music, cocktails arrived, along with cheese, breads, crabs and plenty of congratulations to Rahman and Bartholdy.