John O’Conor, one of the world’s foremost classical piano players, and widely regarded as the finest pianist that Ireland has ever produced, returns to Ballina, Co. Mayo for a concert next month.
His programme for Ballina will include five Chopin pieces, including the beautiful ‘Nocturne in E flat major’, the famous ‘Clair de Lune’ by Debussy, and Beethoven’s ‘Sonata in C sharp minor’, better known as the ‘Moonlight Sonata’.
A master interpreter of the piano sonatas of Beethoven, he last played in Ballina to a packed hall at a charity event in The Twin Trees Hotel in June 2023, as part of the Ballina 2023 celebrations.
A Steinway Artist, John O’Conor is Professor of Piano at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada and Chair of the Piano Division at Shenandoah University in Virginia, USA. Among his other academic roles are Distinguished Visiting Artist at the TU Dublin Conservatoire of Music and Visiting Professor at Showa University in Japan.
For his services to music John O’Conor has been decorated with awards such as Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, the Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst by the Austrian Government, and the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan.
He was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Concert Hall, Dublin by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. Other recipients of this prestigious Irish award include Shane McGowan, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and James Galway.
John O’Conor is father of actor Hugh O’Conor, who played the young Christy Brown in the film ‘My Left Foot’ – which earned two Oscars in 1990 for Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker – and who has also starred alongside Domhnall Gleeson, Kiefer Sutherland and Charlie Sheen in various other cinema releases.
John O’Conor will perform a selection of nine much-loved piano classics by candlelight in the Great National Hotel, Old Foxford Road, Ballina on Monday, March 10 at 7.30pm.
Tickets are €25 and all proceeds will go to the St Muredach’s Cathedral Windows Restoration Fund. Tickets can be purchased from The Parish Office, adjacent to St Muredach’s Cathedral, at 096-70555 (between 9am and 5pm), or online at www.ballinaartscentre.com
