The final concert in this year’s Spotlight Chamber Music Series will open with one of Mozart’s most cherished sonatas for violin and piano, and the only one in a minor key. This work, in two movements – Allegro and Tempo di Menuetto – was written between Mannheim and Paris in 1778, around the time of the composer’s mother’s death, and is imbued with pathos and gravity. It will be followed by Debussy’s Violin Sonata, which was not only his last completed work, but its first three performances were the composer’s last appearances on stage. Written in 1917, it was part of a series of six sonatas promised to Debussy’s publisher Durand, only three of which he completed – the other two being the Cello Sonata and the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp. Following this is a short work written in 2016 by County Down native Deirdre McKay. The composer has noted about a quarter million miles from the moon: “Since writing my third quartet…the incomprehensibly vast quietude of space has become a fixture in my thought: space, being an almost perfect vacuum, is not well equipped to support sound. In an age promising earthlings commercial flights to the moon, if you’d like to experience the sensorial beauty of skilled musicians playing live on exquisitely crafted instruments, you need to visit Planet Earth. With this thought, comes a deeper appreciation of sound as a phenomenon. It draws the ear closer, as though not a note should be wasted. Something of the weightlessness, the immense quietude of a vast soundless space, something of a renewed preciousness in each individual note is fused in this soundworld”. The programme will conclude with Poulenc’s only violin sonata, written between 1942 and 1943 in memory of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.

Musicians:

Mairéad Hickey – Violin
Billy O’Brien – Piano

Programme:

Mozart: Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 21, K. 304
Debussy: Sonata for Violin and Piano
Deirdre McKay: a quarter million miles from the moon
Poulenc: Sonata for Violin and Piano, FP 119

About the Musicians

Irish violinist Mairéad Hickey has performed as a soloist with the Irish National Symphony and Concert Orchestras, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Orchestre de Bordeaux Aquitaine, Kremerata Baltica, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Camerata Ireland and with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach. Her Carnegie Hall debut was described as ‘…magical, penetrating to the heart and soul of the music.’ (New York Epoch Times)

Mairéad was concertmaster of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire from 2021 to 2023. She frequently performs as guest concertmaster in orchestras across Europe.

A passionate chamber musician, Mairéad has performed with Sir András Schiff, Barry Douglas, Tabea Zimmermann, Renaud Capuçon, Steven Isserlis, Christian Tetzlaff, Alain Altinoglu, Kirill Gernstein, and the Vanbrugh Quartet.

Mairéad has performed at festivals around the world including West Cork, Clandeboye, Rheingau, Colmar, Gstaad and Kronberg.

She is the co-founder and co-artistic director of the Ortús Chamber Music Festival in Cork.

Mairéad was Irish NCH Young Musician of the Year 2010 – 2012. She won third prize at the 2016 Louis Spohr Competition and the Hoffmann prize at the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad 2022.

Mairéad began playing the violin with Jyrki Pietila. She studied with Adrian Petcu at the Cork School of Music, Constantin Serban and at Kronberg Academy with Mihaela Martin.

Mairéad plays a 1702 Giovanni Tononi violin.

Pianist Billy O’Brien enjoys a diverse career which encompasses solo performance, chamber music, contemporary music and teaching. He has appeared as concerto soloist with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Hibernian Orchestra, UCD Symphony Orchestra, RIAM Symphony Orchestra, Wexford Sinfonia and Trinity Orchestra in concertos by Chopin, Ravel, Grieg, Gershwin and Beethoven. He has given solo recitals throughout Ireland in venues such as the National Concert Hall, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Gallery, as well as in Spain, France, Finland and the UK. He has appeared in concert series and festivals such as the New Ross Piano Festival, New Music Dublin, Kaleidoscope and the Spotlight Chamber Music Series at Triskel Arts Centre, among others. In chamber music, Billy has partnered with many of Ireland’s leading musicians, and he has collaborated with the Crash, Ficino and Kirkos Ensembles.

Billy has been winner of the Hibernian Orchestra Concerto Competition, the Maura Dowdall Concerto Competition, and the Teissier Bursary (RIAM), as well as second prize in the Irish Freemason’s Young Musician of the Year.

In 2023 Billy was awarded a Doctor in Music Performance degree from Trinity College Dublin and the RIAM. Billy’s research focused on questions of aesthetics and performance studies in relation to Maurice Ravel’s five-movement suite Miroirs. He has published and presented his research at conferences both in Ireland and the UK, most recently at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Billy completed two years’ postgraduate study from 2016-2018 in Paris under Rena Shereshevskaya, and he studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin with Hugh Tinney and Thérèse Fahy. A passionate teacher, Billy has taught at TU Dublin Conservatoire and the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and his students have been prize-winners at national and junior international competitions. Billy is Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning Waterford Chamber Music Festival, which was launched in 2024. Billy is currently Lecturer in Piano at MTU Cork School of Music.