Grand Opening

As soon as I heard about it I booked tickets for the opening season in the brand new Whyte Rectal Hall. It's part of the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM). It's a beautiful 300-seater hall. Architecturally very attractive with lots of timber everywhere, the experience is very similar to the wonderful Wexford Opera House.

These opening events are being presented as a joint venture with the world-famous Wigmore Hall in London. Each programme will be given by performers from the September roster in the Wigmore. Tonight it was the turn of Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, who gave a programme of piano duets by Schubert. For those not familiar with the term, piano duets feature two pianists who sit side by side and share one piano. Mitsuko and Jonathan will repeat this same programme in the Wigmore on Friday.

The Wigmore series continues for the nest three Tuesdays with Stephen Hough, the Schumann String Quartet and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. I'm going to another two of these, on the 12th and 19th of September. I'll also be here again on Saturday for the Irish Baroque Orchestra.

Verdict on the hall? Superb. At last Dublin has a beautiful new music venue,  I'm so glad to have been there for the inaugural event. This was a night to remember.