SEVN Recording day at the National Opera House

Having spent 15 years as principal viola of the Wexford Opera Festival Orchestra, I am well used to performing here. The big difference of course is that would usually be down in the pit. It was a very different experience to be out in the auditorium, you really get a sense of the size of the place and the beauty of the wood.

I decided not to perform on the stage as the sound would have been incredibly dead. I hoped that standing at the side of the stalls, my sound would bounce off the wood.

It was quite a surreal experience playing alone in the theatre like this, it naturally makes you want to fill the hall to the top row of the nose bleeds. Of course listening back, I wish I had considered more the fact we were recording, I think I could have backed off alot more projection wise. But as I have said before, this project wasn’t about creating a perfect recording, it was about discovering new pieces of solo viola repertoire by women composers and having the chance to try them out in some fantastic venues.

For this venue, I recorded Jessie Montgomery Rhapsody No.2. I absolutely love this piece, although it has been one of the trickiest I have learnt in several years. The technical challenges have been so good for me to concentrate on and after a few years of pandemic enforced time off, it was so good to have a real challenge. I would say this recording is a work in progress, I still have a lot of practice to do before this is concert ready, but I am absolutely delighted to have discovered this piece. For that, a shout out to clarinetist Berginald Rash who introduced me to the work of Montgomery last year. I have since programmed two of her quartets, Strum and Source Code, into the Musici Ireland 2022 programme. I definitely recommend checking her out!

American composer Jessie Montgomery Credit: Jiyang Chen

As always a big shout out to Gavin Glass for undertaking this unusual recording assignment.

Thanks also to Aisling White and all the staff at the Opera House who made us feel so welcome.