Category: Radio

This week Niall chooses five pieces by the British light music composer Eric Coates.

RTÉ lyric fm, Wednesday 22^nd January, 10am-1pm

Conductor Stephen Bell says ‘2025 marks the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss II, surely one of the most popular composers of all time. To celebrate this milestone during our one-hour concert, I’ve tried to include as much variety of his output from marches, waltzes, polkas and novelty items, to extracts of operetta and a rarely heard Romance for cello and harp. We’re thrilled to be joined by wonderful star soprano Rebecca Bottone for this broadcast. She brings a particular magic to the coloratura versions of Voices of Spring and Spharenklange waltzes alongside operetta favourites by Strauss and Lehar, including the delightful Vilya from The Merry Widow’.

RTÉ lyric fm, Tuesday 21^st January, 1pm-4pm

Lorcan brings you the perfect musical soundtrack wherever you are! Lorcan’s Pick of the Week is Max Richter’s new album, In A Landscape, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living. Plus, Culture File with Luke Clancy and news and sports updates.

RTÉ lyric fm, Monday 20^th January, 4pm-7pm

We Only Want the Earth

This two-part documentary series, presented by Jonathan Grimes of the Contemporary Music Centre, explores how Irish composers are responding to the climate and biodiversity crisis through their work. Can music inspire us to take ownership of what’s happening and help us imagine and shape a better future for all? Journeying across Ireland by bike, Jonathan meets with composers to chat about how they are engaging with the climate emergency He hears how their music is seeking to sound the transformative changes we’re witnessing and ultimately give voice to hope. The series was a gold award winner at the Association for International Broadcasting’s International Media Excellence Awards in 2023 and also picked up an award in the sustainability category of the IMRO Irish Radio Awards.

Episode 2: Music Fuels Life

In episode two, presenter Jonathan Grimes joins Nick Roth in Massey’s Estate in the Dublin mountains, where the composer and saxophonist leads a music and nature workshop with children. Nick describes his deep connection to trees and the natural world and how they have fueled his life and work. ‘The only way that we can really create a sustainable future is to act out of love. And that love comes from an enjoyment of the world that we live in. And things like the arts and music foster this love of expression, this love of being, this excitement of being alive, all of the arts are fuel for that kind of energy’.

Éna Brennan says climate change has seeped into her work ‘like osmosis’ and she shares with Jonathan how her new opera, Hold your Breath, is informed by the climate crisis. The challenge of music conveying a political message is explored with composer and Kirkos Ensemble founder, Sebastian Adams. ‘One of the big dangers with any kind of political art is that audiences don’t really like being told what to think,’ he says. Jennifer Walshe brings in themes of technology and climate and how she feels conflicted when it comes to travelling for performances: ‘because it feels like we know the car crash is happening, but it’s happening in such slow motion that we’re still in the car.’ Other voices featured include the Hannah Daly, musicologist Stephen Graham and composers Karen Power, Judith Ring and Ian Wilson.

First broadcast – 24th March 2024)

A Contemporary Music Centre production for RTÉ lyric fm co-funded by Coimisiún na Meán, Sound and Vision Scheme, and RTÉ Independent Radio Productions.

Presented by Jonathan Grimes, Contemporary Music Centre

Produced by Helen Shaw, Athena Media and Jonathan Grimes

Series Producer: Eoin O Kelly

Production Co-Ordinator: Lily Collins

RTÉ lyric fm, Sunday 19^th January, 6pm-7pm

Although Gregorian chant might be best known to western ears, thanks in no small part to the enterprising monks of Santo Domingo de Silos and their shrewd record producers, the sheer number and variety of other chant traditions around the world makes for a cornucopia of sacred song. On today’s Vox Nostra, Vlad travels across many continents – Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas – to explore sacred chant traditions and find out how they developed out of – and in turn, might have influenced – local secular song traditions. Vlad’s usual Sunday fare will also delight the ears, especially those connections he’ll make between chant and the exquisite polyphonic choral music of the Renaissance. 

RTÉ lyric fm, Sunday 19^th January, 7am-10am

Three very distinct and individual voices get together every now and then to create a little bit of musical magic. Legendary vocalist, Iarla Ó Lionáird, piano maestro Cormac McCarthy and lyrical clarinettist Matthew Berrill played a concert in Dún Laoighaire’s Pavilion Theatre last November. and RTÉ lyric fm was there to capture it all. You can hear some of the highlights from this intimate and bewitching conversation over two nights this weekend on Vespertine. 

RTÉ lyric fm, Saturday 18^th January, 10pm-1am