Ailish Tynan & Fiachra Garvey

Soprano / Piano

Date & Time: Sunday 12th November 2023, 3pm
Venue: The Saloon, Russborough House
Ticket Info: Tickets €38 / €19 student concession
(+ booking fee)
Artists: Ailish Tynan / soprano
Fiachra Garvey / piano
Programme: Schubert Ständchen / Dass sie hier gewesen! / Gretchen am Spinnrade / Die junge Nonne / Ave Maria Richard Strauss Zueignung / Befreit / Four Songs, Op. 27
Herbert Children’s Songs - Merry-go-round / The Gypsies / The Tadpole / Jack Spratt / Acorn and Willow / The Bunny
Herbert The Days of November (Hips and Haws)
Hughes The Spanish Lady
Bridge Goldenhair
Barber Nuvoletta
Herbert Lake Isle of Innisfree
Barber Solitary Hotel
Seóirse Bodley A Call (text by Seamus Heaney)
Pendleton Bid adieu
Hughes Tigaree torum orum

Irish soprano Ailish Tynan is regarded as one of the finest singers on the world stage. A former winner of the Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, she is blazing an international career as an opera singer, recitalist and recording artist.

Ailish joins celebrated Wicklow pianist Fiachra Garvey for a wide-ranging programme that sets unforgettable Romantic songs by Schubert, Schumann and Strauss and popular songs by Barber and Herbert Hughes, alongside music inspired by the sensual and evocative poetry of James Joyce, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney.

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Watch Ailish Tynan sing Strauss' Four Last Songs with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Watch Fiachra perform Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 with Quatuor Zaide at the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival.

“Tynan... was in radiant voice... the tone at once clear and luscious, situation and character well conveyed, and the highest notes always seeming within easy reach. In short, she was on the top of her very considerable form.”
Michael Dervan, The Irish Times

“…a deep and infectious enthusiasm, combined with insight and technical comfort.”
Sunday Times (on Fiachra Garvey)

Irish soprano Ailish Tynan won the 2003 Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. Ailish was a member of the prestigious Vilar Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and a BBC New Generation Artist, where she recorded and performed prolifically with the BBC orchestras and in recital.

In the current season she returns to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Erste Dame Die Zauberflöte and Berta Il barbiere di Siviglia; performs Górecki Symphony No.3 with the Irish National Symphony Orchestra; Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Philharmonia Orchestra; and recitals at Wigmore Hall, Oxford Lieder, and the National Concert Hall, Dublin.

Ailish has established herself with operatic roles including Gretel Hänsel und Gretel (The Royal Opera, Scottish Opera, and Welsh National Opera); Madame Cortese Il viaggio a Reims, Marzelline Fidelio and Madame Podtotshina’s Daughter in Shostakovich’s The Nose (The Royal Opera); Vixen The Cunning Little Vixen and Mimì La bohème (Grange Park Opera); Tigrane Radamisto (English National Opera); Papagena Die Zauberflöte (Teatro alla Scala and The Royal Opera); Despina Così fan tutte (Garsington Opera, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse); Héro Béatrice et Bénédict (Houston Grand Opera, Opéra Comique and Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg); Sophie Der Rosenkavalier, Nannetta Falstaff and Atalanta Xerxes (Royal Swedish Opera); and Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring (Opéra Comique and Opéra de Rouen).

Among her notable concert appearances are Mahler Symphony No.8 (LSO under Valery Gergiev, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under Marc Albrecht, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi, Philharmonia under Lorin Maazel, and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Sir Antonio Pappano); Mahler Symphony No.4 (Prague Symphony Orchestra under Jac van Steen and the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder); Mahler Symphony No. 2 (Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Myung-whun Chung); Verdi Requiem (Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele under Michael Hofstetter); Haydn The Creation (CBSO under Andris Nelsons); Handel Messiah (AAM under Richard Egarr); and Handel Semele (The English Concert under Harry Bicket at Carnegie Hall). She has appeared at both first and last night of the BBC Proms with highlights including Bella A Midsummer Marriage (BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis) and Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano (Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Kirill Karabits).

Ailish is a passionate recitalist and works regularly with pianists including Iain Burnside, James Baillieu and Graham Johnson and Simon Lepper, giving recitals at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh, City of London, Gregynog, St. Magnus, Brighton and West Cork Music Festivals, the Vinterfespill in Norway, and for the Prince of Monaco at the Irish Embassy in Paris. She performed the world premiere of Nuit d’Afrique written for her by Judith Weir, at Wigmore Hall.

Her numerous recordings include Fauré Mélodies (Opus Arte), Nacht und Träume (Delphian) and An Irish Songbook (Signum) with pianist Iain Burnside; Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music (EMI); and Mahler Symphony No.8 with the LSO under Valery Gergiev (LSO Live) and Philharmonia Orchestra under Lorin Maazel (Signum Classics). Ailish has presented several episodes of Saturday Classics for the BBC and has appeared on BBC Proms Extra as a TV pundit. Additionally, she has been a Jury member for the Song Prize at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and Wigmore Hall Song Competition.

Ailish Tynan

Wicklow-born pianist Fiachra Garvey is possessed of a maturity and profound understanding of his art, which when combined with his infectious enthusiasm for music-making, has already captivated audiences in concert halls across Europe and beyond.

First prizewinner at the 2012 Jaques Samuel Competition, London, Fiachra Garvey, ARAM, has performed in venues from the Fazioli Auditorium in Italy to London’s Wigmore Hall. He has also been a prizewinner at AXA Dublin International Piano Competition (Brennan Prize and McCullough Bursary), EU Piano Competition Prague (concerto finalist), and 3rd Soirees-Concours Internationales de Piano a Collioure, France (Audience award).

The National Concert Hall Dublin awarded Fiachra the “Rising Star” prize in 2011, which subsequently led to a series of concerto and solo debuts.Fiachra’s concerto appearances include Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Janáček Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky and Poulenc with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Grieg with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Prokofiev No. 3 with the RIAM Symphony Orchestra and Grieg with the Hibernian Orchestra, working with eminent conductors including John Wilson, Duncan Ward, Theodore Kuchar, Stephen Bell and Mihhail Gerts.

Recent highlights include the first classical recital at Google Dublin, a series of solo and two-piano recitals in Japan, a tour of China during which Fiachra gave masterclasses at the Beijing Conservatory of Music, as well as appearances at Spoleto Festival Italy, Wexford Opera, Brighton Festival, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and The Geneva Festival, Switzerland.

Fiachra’s debut CD For the Piano, on the RTÉ lyric FM label “brings a deep and infectious enthusiasm, combined with insight and technical comfort.” (Sunday Times). His second CD is a live performance from Wigmore Hall. Fiachra is the Founder and Artistic Director of the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival and Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Classical Vauxhall.

He is hugely grateful for the support he has received from the Arts Council (Professional Development Award 2020) and the Wicklow Arts Office (Artist Award Scheme 2020).

When not performing, Fiachra loves nothing more than returning home to help on the family farm with the yearly lambing, dipping, shearing, harvesting and all the other elegant and refined activities on the farm! Fiachra feels this makes him a more inspired and fulfilled musician.

Fiachra Garvey