Culture Night with the NSOI

National Symphony Orchestra Ireland
David Brophy, conductor
Nava
Sarah Brazil, violin
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, voice, Irish flute
Maria Ryan, voice, viola
Michael Gallen, voice, piano
Dónal O’Connor, voice, fiddle

Copland El Salón México 
Paddy Kiernan Crossroads of Twilight 
Shahab Coohe Cerulean
Ravel Tzigane
Jessie Montgomery Strum
Michael Gallen Bád ón Alltar (Irish Premiere – Co-commissioned by National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, Ulster Orchestra, L’Orchestre National de Bretagne)
Kodály Dances of Galánta

Traditional and orchestral music from four continents meet in a genre-splicing, borders-refusing concert.

An exhilarating meeting of folk, traditional and orchestral music with Irish and Persian accents in a concert splicing genres and refusing borders.

Music bursting with colour and spirit from three continents includes the Irish premiere of Feodora Prize 2025 winner Michael Gallen’s Bád ón Alltar, a powerful mingling of ancient Celtic lore and ‘contemporary themes of migration, invasion and displacement’ for orchestra, voices and traditional instruments.

Gallen says it ‘interrogates our relationship with otherness, placing the Celtic idea of the thin veil between our perceived reality and the “far country” or otherworld in constellation with contemporary themes of migration, invasion and displacement’.

Drawing on his own memories of growing up on the border during the Troubles, he explains ‘the “boat from the otherness” that the title describes is at once the army helicopter, the migrant’s vessel, the foreign body, the answered prayer…the unimaginable, terrible or beautiful new thing that can at any moment emerge from the impossible and change our lives’.

Breaking new ground in bringing the music of Ireland and Persia together, Nava spotlight two scintillating self-penned jigs.

Influenced by minimalist classical music, Cerulean’s title reflects the aquatic atmosphere it evokes, while Crossroads of Twilight is a moody hop jig taking its title from Robert Jordan’s fantasy novel.

Folk music traditions from further afield make themselves felt in Copland’s vibrant, dance-inspired El Salón México; the rich Romani heritage of central Europe conjured in Kodály’s Dances of Galánta and pulsing throughout Ravel’s Tzigane.

Nostalgia becomes life-affirming in Jessie Montgomery’s Strum which ‘begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration’.