THE Walled City Music Festival is opening its virtual doors next Thursday, March 25, for a four-day online festival featuring a world-class line-up of musicians, composers and dancers from across the world. All events are free to view and enjoy on the Derry festival’s website (walledcitymusic.com), Facebook and YouTube pages.
Each evening, Thursday 25 to Sunday 28 March, internationally-renowned guest artists will perform bespoke concerts, recorded exclusively for the Festival in Derry, Munich, Singapore, Toronto, New York and Phoenix, Arizona.
Viewers can expect everything from Bach and Beethoven to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, contemporary works, traditional Irish music, poetry and dance. Artists include Barry Douglas (piano), Kirill Troussov (violin), Li-Wei Qin (Cello), Measha Brueggergosman (soprano) and Jeff Zeigler (cello), as well as Co-Artistic Directors of the Festival Cathal Breslin (piano) and Sabrina Hu (flute).
A lively lunchtime podcast series, featuring some of the guest artists in conversation, will drop each day at 12pm, followed by an afternoon highlights series featuring some of the spectacular performances from the 2020 Walled City Music International Piano Competition, at 2pm.
On Saturday 27 March, aspiring composers will have the opportunity to meet with an international panel of leading composers, including special guest composer Chen Yi, to discuss works they have written during the past 12 months, while in various stages of lockdown.
An open session with all participants will be live-streamed on the Festival’s Facebook page at 7.30pm.
Noirin McKinney, Director of Arts Development at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland commented: “It’s truly heartening to see the festival responding so positively to the challenges of presenting a world-class programme of international music during these exceptional times.
“The music will help lift everyone’s spirits. We are delighted to support this year’s online festival through our Emergency Arts Funds, with additional funding from the Department for Communities”.
All events are free to view/listen and can be found at walledcitymusic.com Facebook and YouTube.
