Keith Pascoe At Home with Triskel Friday 8 May 2020

The Lonely Violin: Keith Pascoe, violinist (b.1959, Liverpool, UK; Based in Cork, Ireland) plays a recital of solo violin music recorded (on his phone) at his home in the south-west of Ireland for the latest concert in our At Home with Triskel series.

In 2016 Keith Pascoe received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Concert Hall, Dublin for his work with the Vanbrugh Quartet. He is an internationally respected violinist, conductor, lecturer, and editor.

As violinist:

His professional career began after prize winning studies at the Royal College of Music, London where he studied violin with Jaroslav Vanecek, piano with Eileen Reynolds, and conducting with Norman del Mar. His professional life began in 1981, when he became a founding member (and first leader) of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Subsequent full-time positions included sub-leader of the London Philharmonic at the age of twenty-three, assistant director of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the Fields (with whom he has appeared as soloist), and ten years with exclusive EMI artists, the Britten Quartet. From 1998-2017, he was a member of the Vanbrugh Quartet, artists-in-residence to University College Cork. The Vanbrugh continue to tour and play concerts with pianist Michael McHale, and other artists. In January 2019 he was invited to lead an international orchestra in Bologna, Italy, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the death of conductor Claudio Abbado.

As conductor:

Keith was principal conductor of the Cork Symphony Orchestra from 2004 until 2015 when he was appointed conductor of the newly established Cork Fleischmann Symphony Orchestra. In that time he has conducted an extensive repertoire of symphonies, and has conducted for such soloists as sopranos Cara O’Sullivan, Majella Cullagh, Mary Hegarty, Sinead Ni Mhurchu and the The Three Irish Sopranos; violinists Mairéad Hickey, Sarah Sexton, Tasmin Little, and Nigel Kennedy with whom he also played Bach’s concerto for two violins; cellists Christopher Marwood, Julian Lloyd Webber, Yseult Cooper-Stockdale; pianists Ciara Moroney, David Syme, Kevin Jansson, and Barry Douglas; the Fleischmann Choir; International choirs including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, and the Harlow Chorus. He opened Cork’s International Choral Festival notably with A Sea Symphony by Vaughan-Williams in 2008, Verdi’s Requiem in 2017, and will open the festival in 2020 with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He has conducted at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, and at the National Concert Hall, Dublin. He conducted the DIT Conservatory’s production of Britten’s opera Noye’s Fludde in Dublin, and gave the premiere of Paul Alday’s first symphony, the first symphony known to have been composed in Ireland. He made his conducting debut at the New Music Dublin festival in 2020.

In addition to his busy performing schedule, he has been researching the music of the eighteenth-century composer Luigi Boccherini. His critical editions of previously unpublished works by Boccherini, issued by HH Edition, have been critically acclaimed, and his discovery of a lost manuscript catalogue of the composer has been cited and referenced by international scholars. He is currently working on a rare manuscript to be published as a critical edition in the near future. His teaching and coaching commitments have taken him across the world, including to such major institutions as Royal College of Music, London; Royal Academy of Music, London; Chethams School of Music, Manchester; Edsberg Institut, Stockholm; Hong Kong University, Kiev Conservatory, University of Southern California, Liverpool University, Birmingham Conservatoire, Yehudi Menuhin School, inter alia. He has received an honorary ARAM from the Royal Academy of Music of Music, London and was awarded first-class honours MA, and first-class honours MPhil from Cork Institute of Technology and UCC, National University of Ireland respectively. He lives in Cork city, Ireland.

PROGRAMME
1. J. S. Bach (b1685 Eisenach. d1750 Leipzig): ‘Gavotte’ from Partita No. 3 in E major BWV1006
2. Tommy Grace (b1987 Kilkenny, Ireland. Based in West Cork, Ireland) ‘Torquere’ (World premiere)
3. Barry Russell (b1956 Hebburn, UK; Based in Huddersfield, UK): Herr Owlglass in Lockdown (World premiere)
4. Matthew Lee Knowles (b1985 Scunthorpe, UK; Based in London, UK): ‘From Opposite Ends of the Universe I can See Myself’ (2012) (World Premiere)
5. Fergus Johnston (b1959 Dublin, Ireland; Locked down in Bulgaria) ‘For Keith’ (World premiere)
6. Rory Dempsey (b1982 Limerick, Ireland; Based in London, UK) ‘The Man Who Drank the Farm’ (World premiere)
7. Siobhan Cleary (b1970 Dublin; based in Boyle, Ireland) ‘Air’ (World premiere)
8. Nicolo Paganini (b1782 Genoa d1840 Nice): ‘Caprice’ No. 11