Music by Boulanger, Fauré, Grieg, Errol Garner and Paul McCartney

Gabriela Mayer, Mary Hegarty, Donal McHugh and Scott Flanigan

The final programme takes us to the world of song, from folksong arrangements from Grieg’s native Norway, to the art songs of the Parisian salons of Fauré and Nadia Boulanger, the Great American Songbook of jazz standards and a popular classic by The Beatles. The endless variety to which the song form lends itself, with or without words, is constantly evolving but remains one of the most direct and indelible forms of musical expression.

Programme

Nadia Boulanger: Soleils Couchants, Cantique Versailles and Chanson
Gabriel Fauré: Songs
Mary Hegarty (soprano) & Gabriela Mayer (piano)

Edvard Grieg: 19 Norwegian Folk Songs, Opus 66 (selection)
I. Cattle call
IV. Siri Dale song
V. It was in my youth
VI. Call and lullaby
XIII. A little grey Man
XIV. In Ola valley, in Ola lake
XVI. How little Astrid was
XVIII. I wander in a thousand thoughts
XIX. Gjendine’s lullaby
Donal McHugh

Errol Garner: Misty
Paul McCartney: Blackbird
Scott Flanigan (jazz piano)

About the Musicians

Dr Gabriela Mayer is a pianist, teacher, and researcher with a passion for connecting interdisciplinary insights. Her fascination with the relationship between language and music, and the inherent meaning behind expressive playing led to a journey of discovery and performance research, culminating in her recently published book The Art of the Unspoken (Peter Lang Group, Oxford, 2023). Since 2019, a creative dialogue with theatre artist Regina Crowley opened new pathways for sharing her musical performances. The resulting interdisciplinary projects encompassed the creation of original piano music interwoven with spoken text, in sound installation and film.

Gabriela studied in Berlin as a Fulbright Graduate Fellow and completed a doctorate at the University of Maryland. She has given concerts and masterclasses at European conservatoires and presentations at AEC conferences and continues to be active as a performer, collaborating with other musicians.

Her students have secured professional careers in a variety of settings. She promotes an international outlook and engagement for students across disciplines. She was involved in the Innovative Conservatoire Seminars for many years as well as an international project on performance training with colleagues from Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia. She is currently the Head of Department of Keyboard Studies at the MTU Cork School of Music.

Soprano Mary Hegarty’s early studies at the Cork School of Music led to a place at the National Opera Studio in London and masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Sir Peter Pears. She represented Ireland at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and subsequently built an impressive career throughout Europe on the operatic stage, concert platform and in regular broadcasts with RTE and the BBC.

Since making her professional debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under the baton of Bernard Haitink, Mary has sung principal roles with English National Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Opera Northern Ireland, City of Birmingham Touring Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Garsington Opera, D’Oyly Carte, Reisopera, La Monnaie, Vlaamse Opera, Adelaide Festival, Opera Zuid, Athens Festival, Bilbao Opera, Opera Theatre Company, Castleward Opera, the Dublin Grand Opera Society and R&R Musical Society. Oratorio and concert appearances include the BBC Proms, many performances of Messiah, Handel’s Creation, Carmina Burana, Maritana, La Bohème (at the RTE Proms), and the Irish premieres of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio.

She has graced the stages of the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Barbican, Birmingham Symphony Hall, National Concert Hall and others, with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra and Concert Orchestras, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Ulster Orchestra, the Orchestre Nationale de Belgique, and the Black Dyke Mills Band.

Mary Hegarty’s recordings include her solo album A Voice is Calling, and CD recordings of Patience and Orpheus in the Underworld with the D’Oyly Carte (Sony), also Silver Tassie (ENO) and Carmen (Chandos) with Glyndebourne Opera. Mary played Gilda in Woody Allen’s movie Matchpoint and appeared in special BBC TV broadcasts and DVD recordings of Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince.

Since returning to live in Cork, Mary has been a lecturer in vocal studies at the MTU Cork School of Music; her students have performed at English National Opera, Garsington Opera, the BBC Proms, and with Celtic Women. One of her students featured in the final stages of BBC TV series The Voice UK – mentored by Sir Tom Jones. Mary was recently the voice and language coach for a British Youth Opera production of Riders to the Sea. She has also developed duo partnerships for recital work with Ciara Moroney and Gabriela Mayer, specialising in German and French song.

Mary was nominated for an Opera Bear Award for her portrayal of Miss Wordsworth in Opera North’s acclaimed production of Britten’s Albert Herring, repeating the role at Buxton Festival Opera. Recent projects have included concerts of the Jazz Songbook with her own quintet and a large-scale Christmas show, Mary Hegarty’s Big-Band Christmas. She has also developed a solo musical theatre cabaret with Cathal Synnott, alongside their work on the new BA in Musical Theatre at MTUCSM.

Pianist Donal McHugh, from Co. Clare, Ireland, graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2014 (BMus Hons in performance) with tutors Norman Beedie and Graeme McNaught. He then spent four years freelancing as a musician in Glasgow – performing, teaching and accompanying. As well as regular classical recitals (both solo and chamber music) he also gained a reputation playing with the many jazz big bands in the city. Donal has taken part in seminars on Grieg’s music a number of times in Bergen, Norway which included the opportunity to perform on Grieg’s own piano in Troldhaugen. In 2020 he completed an MA in Music (piano performance) at the MTU Cork School of Music with tutors Michael McHale and Michael Joyce. Memorable performances were Beethoven’s third piano concerto (string quintet arrangement) as well as a live-streamed solo concert featuring Berg and Schubert. Also a keen composer, Donal has written works for solo piano and voice and piano as well as original jazz tunes and arrangements. He has been a member of the piano department staff of the MTU Cork School of Music since 2021.

Hailing from Belfast in Northern Ireland, Scott Flanigan is one of the foremost keyboard players on the Irish jazz scene. He performs regularly across the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Germany, and has recently performed with Van Morrison, the Ulster Orchestra, Larry Coryell, Jean Toussaint, Jim Mullen and Linley Hamilton. As a leader, Scott successfully tours his own contemporary piano trio, as well as a hard-swinging organ quartet. He also runs the successful Scott’s Jazz Club in East Belfast, a weekly jazz club bringing the best in Irish jazz to local audiences.

Equally at home in academia as well as the bandstand, Scott received his BMus degree from Ulster University and his MMus in Jazz Performance from Dublin Institute of Technology. Scott has recently completed his Ph.D in Jazz Performance at Ulster University, exploring and assimilating contemporary trends in jazz piano into his own playing.

Scott is also in demand as a teacher of jazz harmony, improvisation and concert preparation, lecturing in jazz piano at Cork School of Music and at Queens University Belfast, alongside a busy teaching schedule both online and at home in Belfast.