Third Annual Waterford International Organ Festival

The third annual Waterford International Organ Festival presented diverse, creative classical music concerts featuring the pipe organ, choral and instrumental forces. The 2023 festival
was extended to four evening concerts and a special children’s morning concert.

The festival 2023 opened with an evening of chamber music with Kilkenny-based organist Malcolm Proud (chamber organ), Dublin-based Mexican curtal player Mariana Paras and Cork-based Finnish baroque violinist Marja Gaynor. They presented a programme in honour of the four hundredth anniversary of William Bryd’s death and included baroque sonatas from around Europe for this colourful combination of instruments.

The second evening brought virtuoso Swiss organist, Vincent Thévenaz to Waterford. Thévenaz is professor of organ and improvisation at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Genevaand titular organist and carilloneur of Saint-Pierre Cathedral. Renowned for his dynamic andeclectic programmes, Thévenaz presented the facsinating sound-world of avant-garde composer György Ligeti, celebrating this composer’s centenary.

The weekend programme of events began with a children’s concert and workshop led by Cathedral organist Simon Harden and an arrangement of Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” by Heinrich Grimm. At the Saturday evening concert, we welcomed Sestina, a Belfast-based chamber choir directed by Mark Chambers. Sestina is highly regarded for historically informed performance and a freshness in their delivery of early music.

The final day of the festival we enjoyed Simon Harden in musical dialogue with leading Irish Trumpeters Colm Bryne and Eamonn Nolan and a tour de force of “organ-plus” repertoire.