March NUI Galway and Music for Galway presents Emily Anderson Memorial Concerts

NUI Galway and Music for Galway team up once again to commemorate one of the most remarkable alumnae of NUI Galway, Emily Anderson, with a concert featuring the Emily Anderson Prize winner violinist Benjamin Baker with pianist Daniel Lebhardt as well as young, promising Irish pianist Joe O’Grady. The concert will take place at the Kevin Barry Room, NCH, Dublin on Tuesday, March 19 at 7.30 pm, and again at the Emily Anderson Concert Hall, NUI Galway on Thursday, March 21 at 8pm.

Emily Anderson: Anderson is a most remarkable individual. As the daughter of the then president of the university of Galway Alexander Anderson, she grew up in the Quadrangle, the iconic original building of NUI Galway. She studied German and became the first professor of German at the university. Recent, soon to be published research by Jackie Úi Chionna, unveils an extraordinary woman in many fields. What drew Music for Galway’s attention was the fact that she edited and translated the full correspondence of Mozart, and ten years later of Beethoven, thus opening the minds and thoughts of these giants of the classical music world to the English speaking world. Her works, published in the mid-20^th century have remained to this day the go-to works for musicians, musicologists, documentary film-makers, writers, film-makers and lovers of music.

For nearly two decades NUI Galway and Music for Galway have been celebrating the memory of Emily with a concert featuring the music of the composers she spent so much time researching. This year audiences can look forward to hearing three sonatas for violin and piano, two by Mozart and one by Beethoven. 

The Performers: Born in 1990 in New Zealand, Benjamin Baker studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal College of Music where he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Rose Bowl. He won the Emily Anderson Prize at the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2013 and went on to win 1st Prize at the 2016 Young Concert Artists auditions in New York and 3rd Prize at the Michael Hill Competition in New Zealand, establishing a strong international presence.

Born in Hungary, Daniel Lebhardt won 1st Prize at the Young Concert Artists auditions in Paris and New York in 2014 aged 22. A year later he was selected by Young Classical Artists Trust in London and in 2016 won the Most Promising Pianist prize at the Sydney International Competition.

We continue presenting young promising artists this year with  (13) who opens the concert with Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata. Joe, from Dublin, has been winning awards and praise for his impressive technique and natural musicality since a very young age.

Tickets are €20/€18  Students (full time): €6 and can be booked through the website www.musicforgalway, by calling the Music for Galway office 091 705962 or at O’Maille’s House of Style on Shop Street.

For the performance at the NCH tickets can be booked by calling 01 471 00 00 or on-line: www.nch.ie

Music for Galway is a proud recipient of the Arts Council’s Strategic Funding.

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