Breaking News!
An ideal Christmas present for somebody special!
Buy Hans Palsson Classical Music Tickets here
Buy Frankie Gavin Traditinal Irish Music Tickets here
Details of Poetry, Lectures, Festival Club, Field Trips etc coming soon. The Committee are really excited at our Concerts.
Congratulations!
President Michael D. Higgins
inaugurated Uachtarán na hEireann
November 11, 2011.
Michael D. Higgins honoured us by Opening our 24th Festival July 2011 at the start of his Presidential campaign.
We wish him the best of luck - and appreciates his continuing to support the Arts.
Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland, who launched the 24th Hopkins Festival July 2012 in Newbridge College |
The Committee of the Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival send warm congratulations to Michael D. Higgins, Uactaran na h-Eireann. We are proud of our new President, inaugurated as 9th Uachtarán na hEireann, President of Ireland November 11, 2011.
We were honored to have had the President Elect open our 24th Festival. He also read his Poetry later in the Festival Club.
Our new President, Michael D. Higgins is a human rights activist a poet and an intellectual heavyweight of Irish politics. He has a four-decade record of promoting home-grown arts, literature, film and the native Gaelic language. He is perhaps best remembered for his spell as Minsister for the Arts, for innovative yet practical measures he put in place for arts and film. We congratulate him and wish him every success in his new position.
More about President Michael D.'s Newbridge and Kildare connections.
President Michael D. Higgins and Adrian McGoldrick at Visual Arts Exhibition during the 24th Hopkins Festival |
Classical Music Concert: Hans Palsson
Date: Saturday July 21, 2012
The Theatre, Newbridge College
Traditional Irish Music
Frankie Gavin Fiddle, Michelle Lally, Singer,
July 24, 2012
The Theatre, Newbridge College
Frankie Gavin at 25th Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival
Frankie Gavin is widely considered to be the world's greatest Irish fiddle player. In 2010 he entered the Guinness World Records as the fastest fiddle player in the world.
Frankie has been responsible over many years for bringing some of Ireland's immensely talented traditional performers to the world stage. He has performed everywhere from The White House & U.S. Capitol Building to Beijing Opera House, In addition, he has performed and recorded with a long list of musical luminaries which includes The Rolling Stones.
Frankie Gavin created a new way of playing Irish dance tunes in a group format. He describes in The Companion to Traditional Irish Music as "tightly percussive melody lines set against a flowing, contrapuntal background." And the band's cheeky versions of classical pieces such as Handel's "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" and pop songs like "Hey Jude" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" helped remind the world that traditional music doesn't exist in a cultural vacuum.
'Electrifying'
'Mesmerizing'- if you've never been lucky enough to see Frankie perform live, prepare to be... shocked.
'edgy and brilliant on both fiddle and flute' - Fintan Vallely, Sunday Tribune
Heralded as the greatest Irish fiddler player, Frankie Gavin has nothing left to prove ... Gavin is a true fiddle-playing genius who continues to inspire and dumbfound in equal measure. The Scotsman
Michelle Lally Singer
Michelle Lally is a powerful new singer who has just emerged from Galway in the west of Ireland. Her renditions of contemporary easy listening Irish music are impossible to resist with the gentle charm of her immediately identifiable pure tone.
Michelle's undoubted talent has been brought to the fore by the legendary Frankie Gavin of traditional super group De Dannan. She is currently the lead vocalist with Frankie's new group 'Hibernian Rhapsody' who recently performed with The Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in Liverpool and Dubai Philhamonic Orchestra. The Hibernian Rhapsody band has received rave reviews since its inception and has played to over 80,000 people in the past year alone. The band had the honour of being the opening support act to The Rolling Stones in Slane Castle, Ireland. Michelle's debut album "If This be Love" was released in 2007.
More about Frankie Gavin and Michelle Lally
Hans Pålsson plays Beethoven's Appassionata (1st movement)
Pälsson's acclaimed TBroadcast makes it into the Swedish Charts!
Hans Palsson has broadcast for Swedish Television the acclaimed series "I döda mästares sällskap (In the Company of Dead Masters)", so far consisting of 30 parts. This album made it into the Charts in Sweden for five weeks!
Read what international Press write about pianist Hans Palsson:
The important thing for Pålsson is to penetrate the logic and structure of the compositions, but also to provide an atmosphere of darkly romantic depth, often cloaked in a meditative and evocative chiaroscuro.Pålsson´s performance distinguished itself by its intensity and expressiveness. His power of interpretation, concentrated from beginning to end, plunged the audience into nearly religious emotion - Il Giornale, Milan
His rendition showed a variety that produced the most fascinating musical aspects.A great evening! - Aftenposten, Oslo
A distinguished, composed and well-proportioned performance, overflowing with rhytmic energy and musical rapture.A brilliantly clear, beautifully sonorous and lyrically motile rendering! -
Berlingske Tidende, Copenhagen
Read more about Hans Palsson
Browse our Festival Archive - download part Festival Programmes
Search, read Papers from past Hopkins Festivals since 1987 in our Hopkins Archive
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