Cork festival organiser: Not having an audience was soul-destroying...

NOW in its seventh year, Ortús, the Chamber Music festival, takes place in Cork from February 25 to 27, with leading Irish musicians as well as international musicians taking part.

Co-founders, acclaimed violinist, Mairead Hickey and cellist Sinead O’Halloran, are delighted to be able to present a live festival, having had to postpone last year’s event to September because of Covid restrictions.

“The concert streaming thing is a bit depressing,” says Mairead on the phone from Slovenia.

“Chamber music is meant to be played to a live audience.”

This year’s festival venues are St Peter’s, Tracton Arts Centre and ‘My Place’ in Midleton.

Mairead, curator of the festival, will perform alongside celebrated Irish musicians, Fiachra Garvey and Siún Milne, as well as leading international musicians from all over the world. They are Sindy Mohamed, Brannon Cho, Fumiko Mohri, Sara Ferrandez and Alexander Kovalev. The musicians are from Japan, America, Russia and Europe.

As Mairead says, the line-up is of musicians that she has befriended, playing concerts with them at different festivals.

“They are people I enjoyed playing with and I wanted to play with them again in Cork. Most of them haven’t been to Ireland before so they’re happy to come to Cork.”

Scheduling the festival can be challenging.

“We have to get eight musicians who are all free for the same week.”

While the festival takes place over a weekend, the musicians come to Cork for a week so that they can rehearse.

The audience for Ortús is mixed.

“We get people who are used to coming to concerts. And in recent years, we’re getting a younger audience. A lot of them would be first time concert-goers. I’d love to be going to a concert for the first time. I think it’s amazing to discover classical music.

“We get audiences from the Cork School of Music and people from all around Cork city and county.”

Mairead, who is from The Lough, says that organising the festival on a budget of just €30,000 is quite a challenge.

“It would be great to have more money. Most of what we get is from the Arts Council. We also get support from Cork City Council and Cork County Council.

“There are a few friends of the festival also. But what we get is very limiting.

“We really need more funding. It can be hard to convince people of this. We do what we can with the means that we have.”

The musicians all have to be paid for playing at the festival and there are also travel and accommodation costs as well as venue rental, piano rentals and the cost of scores.

“There are all the little things you don’t think about. We also do some master classes at the Cork School of Music.”

The lead up to the festival is “quite intense and also social. They’re all lovely people who play beautiful music. We’re all kind of friends, certainly by the end of the week. We rehearse and eat together. It’s good fun.”

Before Covid, Ortús had a partnership with Hayfield Manor which provided accommodation for the musicians.

“That was an absolute dream. Covid made things complicated. We have some private apartments. Some people are staying with me.”

Mairead, who incredibly started to learn the violin at the age of just two and a half, is “extremely busy at the moment”.

She adds: “I have concert master positions which see me leading orchestras. I’m going from one project to another. This January I was in Nantes, Paris, Germany, Switzerland and Slovenia.” Does she find all the travelling exhausting?

“Sometimes, it’s tiring but it’s an inspiring musical situation and it kind of gives me energy. I travelled through the night to Slovenia so I didn’t sleep.”

Mairead, who is 25, is not too bothered about putting down roots at this stage of her life.

“I love playing chamber music and I love playing solo. I imagine I’ll continue travelling with my music for as long as I can. I’m happy if I can have a few days in Paris (where Mairead is based) to relax and do my laundry and normal things.”

It is, she says, an “exciting life”.

“Paris is my favourite city in the world. There is so much culture; so much going on, and the French know how to enjoy life. But the whole Covid period was so depressing. 

"Not having an audience was soul-destroying for musicians, without even talking about the financial burden as well.”

How did she manage?

“I lived off my savings and did a few online concerts. Most organisers tried to do their best for musicians. For example, Francis Humphrys of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival was very supportive with some live stream concerts.”

While the Covid experience was difficult, Mairead made the most of it.

“During lockdowns, I remained in Paris. I cooked a lot and read a lot and I got to know my neighbours. In a way, I enjoyed lockdown. There wasn’t the stress of always thinking about tomorrow.”

Growing up, there was always music in Mairead’s house. Her father, Mick Hickey, is a traditional musician who plays banjo, guitar and fiddle.

“I used to play trad music and went to the festivals. It was fun. My mother used to play the clarinet when she was a child. She has a very good ear.”

When Mairead was a toddler, she was told to play a small violin.

“I had good teachers and parents who practised with me. It took a lot of work. I remember a few things from then.”

As a teenager, Mairead missed hanging out with friends after school as she had to practise the violin.

“But I made a lot of friends through music. If you want to do music at a high level, you have to sacrifice a lot. But you get something in return.”

Having attended the Cork School of Music where she was taught by the acclaimed Adrian Petcu (now retired) from 2003 to 2014, Mairead left Cork when she was 18.

“I studied music at the Kronberg Academy in Germany and did a lot of master classes.”

Mairead was the National Concert Hall Young Musician of the Year in 2010-2012. As well as winning prizes at renowned Irish competitions, she won third prize as well as a special prize for the best interpretation of a virtuoso work at the 2016 International Louis Spohr Competition, and first prize in the Jeunesses Musicales Violin Competition in Romania in 2012.

In 2017, she was awarded special prize in the Berliner International Music Competition and at the Manhattan International Music Competition. She spent a year in France studying at the Conservatoire de Nantes with Constantin Serban.

In 2020, Mairead graduated with a masters in performance from the Kronberg Academy.

Looking back on her formative years in Cork, she says: “I was so lucky to be taught by Adrian. He was the best thing that could have happened. I couldn’t think of a better teacher.”

Mairead currently plays a 1702 Giovanni Tononi Violin. The girl from The Lough may have been hot-housed but it has clearly paid off with an international career. The Ortús festival is a way of “coming back to where it all started”.

See http://ortusfestival.ie/