Free concert and theatre series to be held in Carlow Methodist Church

Free concert and theatre series to be held in Carlow Methodist Church

The launch of Carlow Beo! earlier this year. Image via Carlow County Council

CARLOW people are about to enjoy a series of free concerts and theatre pieces, thanks to the local council and the Methodist community as part of a  Carlow Beo! initiative.

Carlow Beo! is an initiative run by Carlow County Council’s arts office in collaboration with the Carlow Local Enterprise Office which aims to bring cultural activities and live performances to towns and villages across the county.

All of the acts, which will perform at the Methodist Church on the Athy Road, Carlow are local performers. Anton Scheele, Carlow Methodist Society Steward, said that he hopes that the performances will showcase how much talent Carlow has to offer.

The first performance will be held on 13 August and is titled A Night of Opera and will feature recent graduates from the Royal Irish Academy of Music performing a mixture of operatic and classic works.

Then there will be three performances in one on 20 August when Deirdre Fleming and Michael Somers perform Two  acts and a monologue, which follows various characters written by Barry McKinley.

Bernard & Brendan’s African musings is on 27 August and will see local optometrist Bernard Jennings team up with travel writer Brendan Harding for a conversation about the decades of volunteer work they both undertook in Kenya.

On 3 September there is going to be an evening of music and poetry when poems are paired with live music, this performance is titled Verse and resonance.

The final performance in this series is  Tunes, Songs and Tall Tales, held on 10 September, which promises to be an evening of traditional music and song featuring musicians Dave Sheridan, Michelle Powderly, Mick Foley and Nell Ní Chróinín.

As part of this initiative, Carlow Methodist received a grant to put these performances on for free. Anton said that the church is hoping to use the grant to upgrade their lighting system, make a few general repairs and help to fund their food bank.

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