Wexford native Norah O’Leary is the cellist with period ensemble Ensemble Dagda who specialise in 17th century music. They will be performing as part of the East Cork Early Music Festival on Saturday in Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh. Full details on www.eastcorkearlymusic.ie

Aoife Burke is a cellist from Cork, and currently holds a residency at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, as part of which she curates the summer lunchtime concert series and the Spotlight chamber music series. 

Sunshine giving you that festival buzz? We've got the ultimate guide to some of the best festivals around!

Five events going on around the country this week. 

Fears have been allayed about the risk of major infrastructure works prompting a scaling-down of a music festival which yearly attracts more than 1,000 visitors to a West Cork town.

Declan Townsend is relishing the prospect of the aural delights on offer at this year’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival

Venue: University College, Cork

A sell-out concert at Cork’s City Hall has helped to raise vital funds towards the recovery from a stroke of Evening Echo reporter Deirdre O’Reilly, herself a champion fundraiser for charity.

A major fundraising concert is to be held for a mother of two children who helped collect €1m for various charities but who now needs help herself after suffering a debilitating stroke.

Put the date in your diaries: Sun Jan 26 is the afternoon to anticipate as Cork City Hall sways to the good old days with Evelyn Grant and the Cork Pops Orchestra.

This week, Cork City Hall will resound to schoolchildren discovering the beauty of classical music and the instruments that create it.

A specially-commissioned piece of ‘marching music’ has been written for Clonakilty as the town prepares for an influx of up to 1,000 visitors next weekend as part of its annual Band Championships.

THIS was the question asked of Francis Humphrys, the artistic director of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, by the French horn virtuoso, Herve Joulain.

In one week, 109 works from the past six centuries will be performed at chamber music festival, says Declan Townsend

IT MUST be every students’ dream — an invitation from a city’s first citizen to skip lectures for free beer.

HAVING been closely involved in the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) since its inception in 1970, I can empathise with Anne Ralph’s disappointment at the decision of the board to amalgamate its two existing youth orchestras (Irish Examiner letters, April 23).

FOUR tonnes of fireworks will explode over Cork in a 15-minute burst of colour, marking the end of the city’s 2005 European Capital of Culture celebrations.