Soprano Aisling Kenny is a soloist and ensemble singer, specialising in early music and art song. She studied music at Maynooth University, and later singing and historical performance at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel, with Evelyn Tubb. In Basel, she participated in master classes with Emma Kirkby, Christine Schäfer and Andreas Scholl. Recent highlights include Handel’s Messiah with Resurgam and the Irish Baroque Orchestra, directed by Monica Huggett, Bach’s Mass in B minor with University of Dublin (Trinity College) Choral Society, and Tarik O’Regan’s The Ecstasies Above with soloists of Chamber Choir Ireland and the RIAM Chorale. Other performances as a soloist include Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, Garden City, New York, with Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Stanford’s Magnificat in G at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, and Britten’s Te Deum with the Charles Wood Singers, Armagh, directed by David Hill and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. An active recitalist of Lieder and lute song, she has recently presented recitals in Basel, Oxford and several venues around Ireland. Aisling, an experienced ensemble singer, is a member of Resurgam Choir directed by Mark Duley, since 2008 and has sung with international conductors including Andrea Marcon, John Butt, and Christophe Rousset.
Conor Hastings was born and raised in Dublin, where he grew up in an extensive musical family and was exposed to a wide variety of music from a very early age. He studied the recorder and trumpet at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. In 2011 he began his orchestral trumpet studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. There he discovered the world of historical performance. He later studied cornetto with Jeremy West and Gawain Glenton, and he has since been an active performer in the UK. From 2014 to 2016 he studied cornetto at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland with Bruce Dickey. Since completing his studies, Conor has performed all over Europe and the Americas with The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts, I Fagiolini, Armonico Consort, the Gabrieli Consort and Players, The King's Consort and Sestina. Conor is an active solo performer in Ireland and abroad. He founded his own ensemble 'Concerto dell'Ombra', a renaissance brass group based in Basel. In 2017 he was appointed a permanent cornett player in The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble. He is a dedicated teacher of the cornetto and a is tutor of renaissance music performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Raymond O'Donnell has been organist & Director of Music at Galway Cathedral since January 1994. A native of Dublin, he studied organ with Gerard Gillen, and served three years as Organ Scholar in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral. He studied music and mathematical physics at Maynooth University, graduating in 1991 with a first-class honours MA in organ performance and interpretation. Before coming to Galway he worked for three years in Clongowes Wood College, where he was responsible for the development of liturgical music in the college. In addition to his Cathedral duties, he has a busy performing career which has seen him give recitals across Europe and in the UK and USA; in recent years he has given concerts in Germany, Belgium, Poland, Finland, France, Italy and the UK. He founded Galway Cathedral Recitals in 1994, and as artistic director has guided it to its present position as one of Ireland's major organ concert series and an important part of Galway's summer. Between 2006 and 2007 he oversaw a major rebuild of the Cathedral organ, by Trevor Crowe, which saw it become what is probably the finest symphonic instrument in Ireland today. In recent years he has returned to Maynooth University as a part-time lecturer in counterpoint and a tutor in organ performance and keyboard skills.
Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
Prelude in F sharp minor, BuxWV 146
Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (1580-1651)
Quam pulchra es
Haec es Virgo
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c1525-1594)/Riccardo Rognoni (c1550-1620)
Pulchra es amica mea (with divisions)
Benedetto Rè (fl 1590)
Tulerunt Dominun
Tarquinio Merula (1595-1665)
Gaudeamus omnes
William Byrd (c1540-1623)
from My Ladye Nevell's Booke
A Fancy
Nicolò Corradini (c1585-1646)
Spargite Flores
Cantata Domino
Igazio Donati (c1570-1638)
O gloriosa domina
Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (1583-1843)
Canzona quinta
Tarquinio Merula
Nigra sum
