Festival co-director Vlad Smishkewych chatted with Limerick Post’s Eric FitzGerald about the upcoming Early Music Day on March 21 and the many events happening next week – “There’s something for everyone. Over 1000 years of music.”
Limerick City’s festival of music from the past returns from March 18-23, offering a rich program of performances, workshops, and storytelling under the banner ‘Scéalta – Stories.’
From medieval Slavic epics to 21st-century compositions for ancient instruments, the festival invites audiences on a journey through time with events at venues including Belltable, Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Dance Limerick, and the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at UL. A highlight of this year’s edition is the appearance of Galician bagpipe virtuoso Carlos Núñez.
There are six early music festivals in the country, with the longest-running in Galway and East Cork since the late 1990s.
Limerick did not have an early music festival until co-directors Yonit Kosovske and Vlad Smishkewych, both trained in the genre, introduced it five years ago.
While much of Limerick’s choral scene performs early repertoire, the duo found particular support from kindred spirits in the city. Notably, Cecilia Madden, principal of the Limerick School of Music, and Peter Barley, organist at St Mary’s Cathedral and director of St Mary’s Choir, have been key allies in bringing the festival together,
The festival showcases leading national and international early music artists, blending history and performance.
The festival opens on Tuesday, March 18, with a lunchtime concert at Saint Mary’s Cathedral featuring Leila Clarke-Carr and Yonit Lea Kosovske in a program titled Faith and Fantasy.
Ukranian duo and screening
In light of recent political events the programme for Tuesday evening could not be more timely. Vlad who is half-Ukranian gave some detail on what is happening at Dance Limerick.
The festival launch event will happen at Dance Limerick,(St John’s Square) at 3:00pm, in collaboration with Mary Immaculate College’s Irish Centre for Transnational Studies. MIC faculty members Dr Sabine Egger and Dr Ailbhe Kenny curate an afternoon and evening featuring a performance of Ukrainian music with Duo Galleon (Vsevolod Sadovyi and Snezhana Rybal’ska), a pair of Ukrainian musicians recently arrived in Ireland in these last few years.
Interwoven with curated readings, this performance is followed by a screening of Oksana Karpovych’s film ‘Intercepted’, a powerful feature-length documentary contrasting the everyday life of Ukrainians since the full-scale invasion, with intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families.
“The musicians performing at the beginning of the launch, Vsevolod Sadovyi and Snezhana Rybal’ska. They are two colleagues and friends of mine and came to Ireland after the war started, and after the Russian invasion, they brought their musical knowledge, enriching us with what they do and what they know.”
Collaboration with the University of Limerick brings New Music for Harpsichord on Wednesday, March 19, followed by a Thursday lunchtime concert showcasing MA Classical String Performance students alongside faculty and guest artist Brooke Green from Sydney, Australia.
Friday’s Consolation and Confidence concert at Saint Mary’s Cathedral features works by Bach, Gabrieli, and Isabella Leonarda, performed by Ancór, St. Mary’s Cathedral Choir, Sagittarius Hiberniensis, and the LEMF orchestra. The concert also debuts the festival’s new Emerging Artist Award, with violinist Kevin Meehan performing a Buxtehude trio sonata in honor of the late arts supporter Bertha McCullagh-Ó Briain.
Family events
“There’s a couple of things happening here on Saturday 22, which we hope is good timing for our youngest fans and audience members and their families.
“We’re going to have a couple of our musicians walk through the Milk Market on Saturday morning, and they’ll call attention to what’s happening in the festival. Our puppet making artist, Rose Minnema will be with them as well.”
“We’ll invite everybody to come to Belltable Hub on O’Connell Street where we will be running a puppet making workshop, really fun stuff, but also a great way to introduce the puppets and puppet making into children’s lives.
“After that comes the interactive family concert that’s going to be with Classicalkids.ie, a trio of the country’s most dedicated early music specialists,”
The day continues with an exploration of architecture and sound by Dr. Eoin Callery, followed by Slovo: The Tale of Igor, a dramatic retelling of a 12th-century Slavic epic featuring voice, lyre, early percussion, and bowed strings.
Still, She Rises!
Sunday highlights contemporary works for early instruments in Still, She Rises! at Belltable, featuring pieces by Brooke Green and the world premiere of Baile by Xenia Pestova Bennett.
“A lot of things we are doing is new music on old instruments. The Sunday concert, Still, She Rises concentrates on the here-and-now of early music.
“You’ll get to hear some amazing things, very catchy tunes, contemporary music, stuff that is drum and bass inspired played on Baroque instruments.”
Carlos Núñez
The festival concludes with Celtic Stories of the Cantigas, a performance by Carlos Núñez, fusing medieval music with the rhythms of Galician folk at Saint John’s Cathedral.
“I invited Carlos because back in 2017 he invited me to be in his band, his medieval orchestra project that he had in the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. We’ve done this concert several other times and he’s always brought me along. It’s been really fun to do that with him.
“And so I invited him to the festival and said, Would you like to come back to Ireland? He was in Dublin last year, but this is his only Irish concert on this particular visit. So if you would like to hear Carlos this year. You should come to Limerick.”
“For five years now, LEMF has been a destination for early music lovers in Ireland and beyond,” said festival co-directors Yonit Kosovske and Vlad Smishkewych. “Ancient traditions and contemporary approaches meet on our stages, bringing audiences on diverse musical journeys through time and culture.” In other words, there’s something for everyone. Over 1000 years of music.”
“Audiences can expect to have an absolutely fantastic time and be fully entertained in unexpected ways that they will definitely not find anywhere else.
“This is a very unique festival, and I am biased as director, but I will tell you that what we do is also not your stodgy old classical music festival either (laughs).
“It is about bringing the old and new together on a stage and having them meet in dialogue. It’s about bringing music from centuries ago to the person on the street, to children in schools, to families together. And it is about making sure that everybody remembers that every music was once new music.”
Check out www.limerickearlymusic.com for more detailed information. The festival runs from Tuesday March 18 – Sunday March 23.
And also tune in to Vox Nostra with Vlad Smishkewych on RTE Lyric fm every Sunday morning (7am-10am) which is dedicated to early music. Vlad will be building up to Early Music Day on March 21 and the festival here in Limerick.
