Night Prayer I

7.30pm, The Oriel Centre at Dundalk Gaol

Gothic Voices will perform a programme of mediaeval and contemporary works in the intimate setting of Dundalk Gaol. Karen Tanaka, Linda Buckley and Michael Pisaro have both written new works to mark the occasion. The programme will open with the numinous beauty of Linda Buckley’s Revelavit.

The festival opens on Friday with the presentation of the prestigious Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music by Gabriele Forberg-Schneider of the Forberg-Schneider-Stiftung to Eamonn Quinn, Artistic Director of Louth Contemporary Music Society. The Belmont Prize honours ‘innovation, daring, and courage’ in music and is awarded every two years. It is one of Europe’s largest artistic awards, with a prize of €20,000. Previous winners include composer and clarinetist Jörg Widmann, pianist Marino Formenti, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, and violinist Carolin Widmann.

Funded by the Arts Council, Create Louth, Forberg-Schneider-Stiftung and Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation