National Concert Hall Announces Trailblazing Composer-Pianist Nils Frahm, Katia & Marielle Labeque premiering Philip Glass’ Cocteau Trilogy, Grammy Award-winning Jazz Singer Samara Joy and Derry Pianist Ruth McGinley for Perspectives Series 2024

• Samara Joy - Saturday 20 April 8pm €22, €27, €32
• Ruth McGinley - Thursday 2 May 8.30pm €15
• Katia and Marielle Labèque Cocteau Trilogy Saturday 15 June 8pm €29.50, €37.50, €45
• Nils Frahm Music for Dublin - Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 July 8pm €29, €39, €49 
  

The new concerts include a weekend of music curated by influential German musician and composer Nils Frahm (Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 July), a new commission by Philip Glass for the pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque based on his Cocteau Trilogy (Saturday 15 June), an NCH debut by Grammy Award-winning jazz singer Samara Joy (Saturday 20 April) and the welcome return of Derry pianist Ruth McGinley (Thursday 2 May). 

Pioneering composer-producer-pianist Nils Frahm returns to the National Concert Hall on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 July to perform his new project Music For Dublin, where he will curate a weekend of music by artists he admires. Part of a worldwide tour in which each show is dedicated to each city, Nils presents to Dublin brand-new material that moves between the worlds of experimental, neo-classical, ambient and electronica. Redefining the space between classical and electronic music, Nils Frahm’s unconventional approach to the piano, played contemplatively and intimately and his sonic alchemy of ambient textures and atmospheric electronica, has won him many fans around the world.  

The NCH is delighted to collaborate with pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque on their Phillip Glass commission, Cocteau Trilogy on Saturday 15 June. The project has its genesis in 2021, when the musicians created the instrumental suites for two pianos taken from Philip Glass’s Opera Les Enfants Terribles, based on the film by Cocteau. The success of both the record and their concerts left the pianists all the more eager to ask Philip Glass and his music director Michael Riesman to complete the trilogy by applying the same method to the remaining two operas in the Cocteau Trilogy: Orphée and La Belle et la Bête. This concert is produced by Philharmonie de Paris in a co-production with the National Concert Hall, Barbican Centre, Cité Musicale - Metz, Opéra National de Bordeaux.   

‘The Labèque sisters are tremendous. They’re great performers, and great interpreters’ - Philip Glass. 

Praised by the New York Times as the 'silky-voiced rising star' of jazz, Grammy Award-winning singer Samara Joy makes her NCH debut on Saturday 20 April. At this year’s Awards, Samara won in both Best Jazz Vocal Album and the auspicious Best New Artist categories. Her lauded album Linger Awhile has earned her fans like Anita Baker, Regina King, Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson. NPR has praised her as a 'classic jazz singer from a new generation.'  

Derry pianist Ruth McGinley makes a welcome return to the National Concert Hall on Thursday 2 May to perform a programme of Bach, Philip Glass and Chick Corea ahead of the release of her forthcoming new album. Since the release of her acclaimed debut Reconnection in 2016 she has performed as a soloist at the BBC Proms in the Park, collaborated with Belfast composer Neil Martin on the album Aura and delighted audiences in venues such as the Southbank Centre, London and the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC to name but a few.  

As previously announced, Perspectives also welcomes the pioneering group Kronos Quartet on Sunday 27 May as part of their 50th anniversary Five Decades tour which will see them perform seminal pieces from their extensive canon. The tour has already garnered rave reviews including five stars from The Guardian and four-and-a-half from Music OMH, the former describing the tour as ‘an extraordinary musical odyssey that traverses the group's illustrious fifty-year career, showcasing their pioneering spirit and innovative approach’ and the latter calling it ‘dazzling, inventive and adventurous’. A recent glowing review from the New York Times revered them as ‘an ensemble constantly chasing newness’ and stated, ‘the group has changed the music world.’ 

Tickets:  

Samara Joy - Saturday 20 April 8pm €22, €27, €32
Ruth McGinley - Thursday 2 May 8.30pm €15
Katia and Marielle Labèque Cocteau Trilogy Saturday 15 June 8pm €29.50 €37.50 €45
Nils Frahm Music For Dublin - Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 July 8pm €29, €39, €49

On Sale 10am Wednesday 22 November
10% Discount for Friends of NCH
10% Discount for Groups of 10 or more

ENDS     

Media Queries: Sinead Doyle, Marketing & PR Manager or Roisin Dwyer, PR & Publications Executive, National Concert Hall, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2. (S. Doyle Tel: 087 1775334 / R. Dwyer 085 7129628)