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Festival Artists
Catherine Redding
Wicklow-based Canadian soprano Catherine Redding has performed internationally in oratorio, recital and opera. Oratorio and concert highlights include Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Mondonville's In Exitu Israel (conducted by Christophe Rousset), Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Requiem, and Fauré’s Requiem in venues such as St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, the National Concert Hall, Dublin and Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. As a recitalist, Catherine’s performances in Canada, Italy, Austria, England and Ireland have encompassed a repertoire of Baroque to contemporary works. Catherine’s operatic roles include Sandman/Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel) with Longborough Festival Opera, UK, Barbarina (The Marriage of Figaro) and Emmie (Albert Herring) with Opera Project, UK and Oscar (A Masked Ball) and Zerlina/Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) with Opera 2005. Catherine was honoured to be the soloist for Ronan McDonagh’s Faith, hope and love at the 2018 Papal Mass in Phoenix Park. Catherine’s debut solo album Lullaby launched in 2015. She sang the solo soprano part in award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel’s Grammy long listed seven-disc Gospel According to Mark, which was released in April 2023.
Eoin Conway
Eoin Conway is a singer, conductor, pianist, and arranger / composer from Dublin. He earned his Master’s degree in vocal performance from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 2016, studying with Lynda Lee, and his Bachelor’s degree from NUI Maynooth, majoring in composition. He was a multiple prize-winner at the Dublin Feis Ceoil, including the Dermot Troy trophy for oratorio, and the Joseph O'Mara cup for male voices. As a choral singer, Eoin works with Ireland’s professional choral ensembles including Chamber Choir Ireland, Sestina, Lassus and Resurgam. He is also a regular deputy member of the Norwegian Soloists Choir, and was a lay vicar at Christ Church cathedral, Dublin. As a solo singer, he performed the role of The Refugee in Opera Collective Ireland's production of Flight by Jonathan Dove; Peisander in Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses; the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; Nerillo in Cavalli’s Ormindo; and Fileno in Handel’s Clori, Tirsi e Fileno. His arrangements have been commissioned and recorded by several of Ireland’s leading choirs, including the UCD Choral Scholars, New Dublin Voices, Maynooth University Chamber Choir, and the Palestrina Choir, and are published by Cailínó and Seolta music publishers.
Stuart Kinsella
Photo: Tristan Hutchinson
Stuart Kinsella is a tenor soloist and consort singer whose experience includes the RIAS Kammerchor in Berlin, Vlaams Radiokoor in Brussels, Arnold Schoenberg Chor in Vienna, Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova and Musica Ficta in Copenhagen, Coro Casa da Música in Porto, as well as Chamber Choir Ireland and Resurgam. His cathedral career has spanned the Irish choirs of Christ Church and St Patrick’s in Dublin and the English choirs of Durham and Christ Church, Oxford. As a soloist, he has sung as evangelist in Schütz’s Weihnachtshistorie, Distler’s Weihnachtsgeschichte and Bach’s St John Passion, the sprechstimme in James MacMillan’s Seven Angels with the Vlaams Radiokoor touring Belgium (2019), Tristan in Frank Martin’s Le vin herbé with Léo Warynski in Porto (2021). In Ireland, he sang the Irish Baroque Orchestra’s Bach Mass in B minor (2022), Handel’s Messiah for both the East Cork Early Music festival (2022) and St Patrick’s cathedral (2023) and Bach in the cathedrals of Christ Church, Dublin and St Mary’s, Limerick (2023). Stuart is delighted to return to Bach at St Mary’s at the Limerick Early Music Festival, where his vocal ensemble, Peregryne, also sings medieval polyphony for the office of Compline on Wednesday 20 March 2024 at 17.30.
Stuart Kinsella is a tenor soloist and consort singer whose experience includes the RIAS Kammerchor in Berlin, Vlaams Radiokoor in Brussels, Arnold Schoenberg Chor in Vienna, Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova and Musica Ficta in Copenhagen, Coro Casa da Música in Porto, as well as Chamber Choir Ireland and Resurgam. His cathedral career has spanned the Irish choirs of Christ Church and St Patrick’s in Dublin and the English choirs of Durham and Christ Church, Oxford. As a soloist, he has sung as evangelist in Schütz’s Weihnachtshistorie, Distler’s Weihnachtsgeschichte and Bach’s St John Passion, the sprechstimme in James MacMillan’s Seven Angels with the Vlaams Radiokoor touring Belgium (2019), Tristan in Frank Martin’s Le vin herbé with Léo Warynski in Porto (2021). In Ireland, he sang the Irish Baroque Orchestra’s Bach Mass in B minor (2022), Handel’s Messiah for both the East Cork Early Music festival (2022) and St Patrick’s cathedral (2023) and Bach in the cathedrals of Christ Church, Dublin and St Mary’s, Limerick (2023). Stuart is delighted to return to Bach at St Mary’s at the Limerick Early Music Festival, where his vocal ensemble, Peregryne, also sings medieval polyphony for the office of Compline on Wednesday 20 March 2024 at 17.30.
William Gaunt
William Gaunt was born in Yorkshire and began his musical education there as a chorister at Ripon Cathedral. Following a choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge, he began his professional career in the choirs of Christ Church, Oxford and Westminster Cathedral. Since 2021 he has been resident in Ireland. William has pursued a career performing and recording both as a soloist and with several world-renowned ensembles. Solo highlights include Handel Messiah with Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht (Johannes Leertouwer) and Portland Baroque Orchestra (Desmond Earley); Bach Johannes-Passion for Paul McCreesh; Stravinsky Les Noces for Paul Hillier; Bach Matthäus-Passion for Stephen Cleobury. Solo recordings include Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Robert Howarth) and the Dunedin Consort (John Butt); Odes by John Blow with Arcangelo (Jonathan Cohen); Fauré Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra (Nigel Short); Handel Messiah with NPU (Johannes Leertouwer); Bach Matthäus-Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music (Stephen Cleobury).
Ancór Choir
Ancór chamber choir was founded in 2005 by conductor Cecilia Madden and has become one of the most exciting vocal ensembles to emerge from the Mid-West region. The choir performs at concerts, weddings, charitable and corporate events on a regular basis. Recent concert tours have included Féile na Bealtaine in Dingle, Co Kerry (2019), Slovenia (2017), Italy (2014) and France (2012), and they are looking forward to their concert tour in Sardinia this coming July! Ancór embraces a wide range of sacred and secular repertoire from the Renaissance to the 21st century. The choir has won numerous awards in Ireland and currently holds the title of Best Limerick Choir 2020 (Limerick Choral Festival). In 2015, Ancór launched a 10th anniversary recording Sing Joyfully. Over the years Ancór has collaborated with several ensembles and well-known vocal soloists including UL Orchestra, Irish Symphonic Wind Orchestra, Dublin City Jazz Orchestra, Limerick City Big Band and Limerick Sinfonia. Ancór has performed many works by JS Bach, and the members are delighted to have become an annual fixture on the LEMF calendar with a focus on the sacred music of JS Bach and his contemporaries, all in partnership with local, national and international musical partners.
Sagittarius Hiberniensis
Sagittarius Hiberniensis, a new vocal ensemble whose spiritual and musical home is St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, was formed in the autumn of 2019 and gave its debut concert at Epiphany in 2020. The idea for the group sprang from a desire amongst a number of like-minded musicians to get together to sing and perform sacred music. Alongside this is the wish, on the part of the group’s Director, Peter Barley and some of the more experienced musicians in the choir, to unfold these musical treasures not just for audiences but also for the younger student-aged musicians within the group who may not have all that many opportunities to encounter and sing this repertoire. A further benefit of the ensemble is that it provides an opportunity for some of these students born and bred in Limerick to retain musical links with their native city. The choir is made up of some of the singers in the cathedral choir and members of the teaching staff of Limerick School of Music, together with former students from the School of Music and a few guest singers and friends.
Peter Barley
Peter Barley is Organist and Choirmaster of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick. He is also on staff at Limerick School of Music, where he teaches piano and organ and is a staff accompanist. Peter was previously Organist at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, from where he holds the title of Organist Emeritus. Peter began his career in London, where he was Director of Music at St Marylebone Church, as well as regularly accompanying the Corydon Singers, the London Concert Choir, and Canticum. The foundations for his interest in choral, organ and sacred music were laid through studies at King’s College, Cambridge (where he was an organ scholar) and at the Royal Academy of Music, London. As an organist, Peter has performed at many UK venues, including St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and Bridgewater Hall. He has also played at most of the main Irish recital venues, and in all the regular ‘noon-hour’ organ recital series in Toronto, Canada. A former Director of the Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy, Peter also spent six years as Chair of RSCM Ireland. He is now closely involved in the Limerick Pipe Organ Festival. He directs the choirs of Sagittarius Hiberniensis and Saint Mary’s Cathedral.
Cecilia Madden
Cecilia Madden first studied music (piano, oboe, recorder and theory) at Limerick School of Music and then continued her studies at Trinity College Dublin where she read for the degrees of B.A. in Music & History and the M. Phil. in Reformation & Enlightenment Studies, while concurrently studying Oboe with Albert Soliveres at the D.I.T. (now T.U. Dublin) Conservatoire of Music. During her time at TCD, Cecilia was awarded the Taylor Exhibition and an Entrance Exhibition and she conducted the Trinity Orchestra and the Trinity Chapel Choir with which she also sang as Choral Scholar. Cecilia’s first professional conducting post was as Director of Music at St Ann’s Church, Dawson St, Dublin. At this time, Cecilia participated in many conducting masterclasses including at Westminster Choir College (Princeton, New Jersey); with the European Academy of Young Choral Conductors (Timmendorf, Germany); at the Civico Liceo Musicale (Verase, Italy) and with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland before taking up a place as a guest student at the Hochschule für Musik (UdK) Berlin.
Cecilia studied Post-Primary teaching at the University of Limerick and was later awarded a Post-Grad. Dip. in Educational Leadership & Management from NUI Maynooth. She taught in the Ursuline School in Waterford and then with Ardscoil Mhuire in Limerick before being appointed to LSOM as Deputy Principal in 2014. As well as her ongoing conducting work with Ancór and the choirs at the Limerick School of Music, she has also recently been a guest conductor with Limerick Sinfonia and Limerick Philharmonic Orchestra. Cecilia is now Principal of LSOM, having been appointed to this role in 2022. She has a particular interest in vocal and instrumental music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and is delighted to be part of the LEMF festival, both as performer and educational partner.
Cecilia studied Post-Primary teaching at the University of Limerick and was later awarded a Post-Grad. Dip. in Educational Leadership & Management from NUI Maynooth. She taught in the Ursuline School in Waterford and then with Ardscoil Mhuire in Limerick before being appointed to LSOM as Deputy Principal in 2014. As well as her ongoing conducting work with Ancór and the choirs at the Limerick School of Music, she has also recently been a guest conductor with Limerick Sinfonia and Limerick Philharmonic Orchestra. Cecilia is now Principal of LSOM, having been appointed to this role in 2022. She has a particular interest in vocal and instrumental music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and is delighted to be part of the LEMF festival, both as performer and educational partner.
Catherine Sergent
Catherine Sergent is a long time member of the world renowned Discantus ensemble, a women’s a cappella vocal ensemble bringing to life the vocal music of the Middle Ages. Its prolific discography has won high critical acclaim, as well as several awards. The thirteenth recording, "The Argument of Beauty" (sacred polyphonies by Gilles Binchois, at Æon recordings) was rewarded the 2010 best recording of the year by Le Monde newspaper. Catherine also directs Cantoral, the all-female
Limerick-based vocal ensemble specialising in Medieval music.
Limerick-based vocal ensemble specialising in Medieval music.
Máire Keary-Scanlon
Máire Keary-Scanlon has over thirty-five years experience as a vocal coach and choral director. She directs Seoda Chamber Choir, Limerick Chamber Choir, the County Limerick Youth Choir and Cantette Children's Choir. She has also been a tutor at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick since 2012. She has almost 20 years experience as musical director with various musical theatre groups, winning AIMS awards for Best Choral Director and Best Musical Director. She has worked with the Irish Chamber Orchestra's “Sing Out With Strings” programme and also on the “Music In Mind” with Mental Health Ireland and NCH Education programme.Her choirs have travelled extensively winning several awards, both at home and abroad. At the Prague Choral Festival, received the award for Best Overall Conductor. She holds an MMusPerf in Choral Directing from Trinity College Dublin. In 2013 and again in 2018, Máire was given a mayoral reception and presented with scrolls of recognition from Limerick County Council on behalf of the people of the County for her extraordinary and significant contribution, commitment and dedication to the county’s arts programmes and to acknowledge the life defining difference she has made to so many people, adding to the “vibrancy of the community”.
Limerick Youth Choir
Limerick Youth Choir was founded in 2007, giving a choral training ground and platform to young people between the ages of 17 and 28 from all over Limerick City and County. They achieved huge success very quickly, and have performed to great acclaim all over Ireland and as far afield as France, Austria and Finland. Winners of several competitions under the direction of Máire Keary-Scanlon, many past members have gone on to have full-time careers in singing, both as soloists and as members of professional choirs. Singing a vast and varied repertoire, this choir has recently begun to train the younger male chorister as part-time members and this is proving to be a very successful and exciting venture.
Cantoral
Cantoral is a female vocal ensemble specialising in Western plainchant and medieval polyphony, with a particular interest in repertoire from and connected with Ireland. The ensemble is directed by Parisian-based singer, Catherine Sergent. Founded in 2008, Cantoral has featured several graduates of the MA Ritual Chant and Song programme at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. The ensemble had its international debut in 2009 at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. Cantoral has since sung for the Dalai Lama in Ireland, and has performed at the Galway Early Music Festival, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Harvard, and University of Notre Dame, among many other prestigious venues and festivals throughout Ireland, United States, and France, including Festival Voix & Route Romane. In 2014 Cantoral recorded their CD Let the Joyous Irish Sing Aloud/Laetabundus Decantet Hybernicorum Cetus.
Vanessa Paloma Elbaz
Dr Vanessa Paloma Elbaz is an active musician and an international performing artist of Moroccan Jewish repertoires. She has performed in numerous festivals around the world, and has frequently appeared in documentaries, radio, and television, including PBS, PRI, the New York Times, BBC, France24, and Al Jazeera International, among others. She is Research Associate of the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge and Senior Research Associate of Peterhouse, working on the UKRI funded project "Ottoman Auralities and the Eastern Mediterranean 1789–1922: Sound, Media and Power". Dr. Elbaz was granted her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne's CERMOM research group of the INALCO with félicitation du jury and was nominated for the best dissertation of the year for INALCO in 2018. In 2012 she founded KHOYA: Jewish Morocco Sound Archive in Casablanca. While looking not only at official representations of minority voices, but also at the impact of performances of ‘Jewish’ repertoires by both Jewish and non-Jewish performers and cultural activists, Vanessa’s research unearths the slow and complex story of how national identities are built through music and the entanglement between recreation and reinvention of memory. Her monograph is tentatively entitled: Needing Jewish Sounds: Why Morocco and Spain still Perform the Songs of their Absent Minority.
Mustafa El Meknassi
Mustafa El Meknassi is one of the leading violinists and oud players of North African and Oriental music. A long time band leader of Arabic traditional and popular music orchestras, he has toured with Botbol and Doukkali, amongst others. He has played at the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Cite de la Musique in Paris, as well as in Madison Square Garden in New York. He is a composer and producer and has written and produced numerous records. El Meknassi currently lives in Marrakech.
Zaki Chaabi
Zaki Chaabi is a singer and percussionist from Casablanca. From a very young age he learned the songs and rhythms of the Aita known as Bidaouia or Marsaoui (from Casablanca or the port of Casablanca), home to such names as Bouchaib Bidaoui and the famous Marechal Quibo. In the 1980s, Chaabi performed with contemporary masters, including Adellah Bidaoui, Fettouh, Mina Haddaouia, Jamal Roumani, Khadouj Statia, and Haja Naima, as well as many others.
Mark Cooney
Mark Cooney is an oboist, plays cor anglais, and is a traditional Irish instrumentalist from Detroit, Michigan. He received his B.A in oboe performance from Wayne State University in Michigan, where he participated in their Orchestral Studies post-graduate programme. He is a recipient of the Evangeline Dumesnil scholarship, Harry Begian Award in Musical Excellence, and Star of Delta Omicron Music fraternity. He has performed with the Michigan Philharmonic, International Symphony of Sarnia, Detroit Civic Symphony, Ann Arbor Chamber Players, and the Detroit Camerata, as well as having participated in the American Youth International Orchestra where he toured throughout Europe with one of America’s leading young persons' orchestra. Mr. Cooney also earned a Master’s Degree in Irish Music Studies from the Irish World Academy of Music where he graduated with honours. Currently living in Limerick, Mr. Cooney has performed in many ensembles in Ireland, such as the Limerick Early Music Festival Orchestra, Limerick Philharmonic Orchestra, Limerick Choral Union Orchestra, Irish Symphonic Wind Orchestra University of Limerick Orchestra, and Adult Irish Youth Orchestra. He was also invited to give an oboe masterclass at the Limerick School of Music. His primary teachers on the oboe and cor anglais were Brian Ventura (Detroit Symphony Orchestra), Dr. Eldonna May, Stephanie Shapiro (Wayne State University), and Timothy Michling (Ann Arbor Symphony).
Catherine Kelly
Catherine Kelly is a university student from Cork. She has a lifelong passion for music, playing oboe and violin from a young age. She has competed locally and nationally over the years in both classical and traditional Irish music and has completed performance diplomas with Trinity College London. She especially enjoys ensemble and chamber music, and alongside her studies in medicine she continues to play with many amateur and professional orchestras and bands around Ireland.
Leila Clarke-Carr
Leila Clarke-Carr comes from an artistic and creative background where she began studying violin at the age of seven. She is currently studying on the Masters in Classical String Performance Programme at the Irish world Academy in Limerick under the mentorship of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. She completed her Bachelors in Music Performance at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin and has been awarded at competitions such as the Feis Ceol, Newpark Music Festival, first prize at the TUD Conservatory of music and has recently competed in the Semi-Final of the Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year 2023. She enjoys performing in a wide variety of ensembles and styles with the MA Classical Strings Ensemble and Libra Strings Ensemble and previously with orchestras such as the RIAM Philharmonia Orchestra, NCH SinfoNua Orchestra, Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra.
Kaito Rodrigues dos Santos
Kaito Rodrigues, born and raised in Brazil, started studying both violin and viola with 15 years old, and soon began playing and arranging for a variety of orchestras and small ensembles in different parts of Brazil. During his bachelor's ensemble in the university in Brazil his repertoire was mostly focused in baroque and Brazilian classical and popular repertoire. Now he is currently in the second year of his Master's degree in Classical Music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, where he began doing workshops in historically informed performance.
Sarah Groser
Sarah Groser first played the viola da gamba as a child, encouraged by her viol-playing father, whilst waiting to start on the cello. She concentrated on the cello until her late teens when she heard viols playing in consort and was captivated by the sound. At Manchester University she was able to study both Baroque cello and viol with Charles Medlam of London Baroque and continued on to Rotterdam Conservatorium to study Baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden. Later she had lessons with Jordi Savall as an external student at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Sarah has since stopped playing cello and now concentrates on all the different sizes of viol. She was a member of the Rose Consort of Viols for fifteen years and of Sonnerie under Monica Huggett for three years. She has also played with London Baroque, Fretwork, Charivari Agréable, and the Dowland Consort. In 2001 Sarah moved from England to West Cork. In Ireland, she has collaborated with The Irish Baroque Orchestra, the IBO Concert Soloists, Resurgam, Sestina, Camerata Kilkenny, Morisca, The Orchestra of St Cecilia, Madrigal 75, and as a duo with Sarah Cunningham. She performs regularly with harpsichordist Yonit Kosovske on early and contemporary repertoire.
Ingrid Nicola
Ingrid Nicola is a founding member of ConTempo Quartet, the celebrated string quartet that became RTE's Quartet in Residence in 2014 and has been Galway's Ensemble in Residence since 2003. Ingrid is also a founding member of Duo ConTe, a recent recipient of a residency at the Irish Cultural Institute in Paris. In 2022, Ingrid received the title of “Knight” from the President of Romania, Klaus Werner Johannis, for her cultural contribution on the international artistic scene. Ingrid has won numerous chamber music competitions worldwide, and has performed over 2000 concerts around the world, including in Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Philharmonic Hall in Berlin, Gedai University in Tokyo, among many others. Ingrid has also had the honour of performing for President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins, and for the late Pope John Paul II, as well as for King Charles, and the late Nelson Mandela, as well as for various EU Ministers, and for Hollywood actors Angelica Houston, Angela Lansbury, Martin Sheen, and Merv Griffin. Ingrid has participated in numerous television and radio broadcasts, and she is committed to premiere new works, including interdisciplinary projects combining music with poetry, visual arts, painting, film, dance or circus. In 2016 Ingrid received her Doctor of Music degree from the University of Galway.
Annina Ahola
Annina Ahola is a Finnish violinist who has been based in Ireland for many years. She is experienced and accomplished as a soloist, as well as an orchestral and chamber musician, in Ireland and internationally. She completed her secondary education at the well-known Sibelius-lukio in Helsinki, and later studied violin at DIT Conservatory of Music. In addition to her work as a performing musician, Annina has a PhD in Music from UCD and lectures frequently on music. Throughout the years she has been generously funded by scholarships from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, UCD, the Irish Department of Education, and the Finnish Department of Education. She currently teaches violin at Limerick School of Music.
Wolodymyr Smishkewych
Yonit Kosovske
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