Open House

Le Foyer des Artistes is passionate about community engagement. So much so, we want to make sure that wherever we perform our doors are
always open to you. With Open House, come celebrate with us during our residency at St Columb’s Hall in Derry City.

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Open Workshops

We are delighted to announce that Alexander Boldachev, Le Foyer des Artistes Associate Artist and one of the world’s greatest harpists, will lead two major workshops during his visit to Derry in 2023.

Open Rehearsals

Come to our concerts or experience the creative process at one of our open rehearsals. You can meet the artists, participate in workshops, or even collaborate with us. We are also keen to involve a younger audience, and we look forward to welcoming children to all of our events.

One of our most exciting projects yet is the St Columb’s Hall Concerto Award. With a top prize fund and a professional concerto engagement, it will be one of the most significant awards for young musicians in Europe. Not only will it support a new generation of exceptionally gifted virtuosos from around the world, but the winner comes back as concerto soloist with Le Foyer des Artistes as part of the Midsummer Concert on 6 June 2024.

For this significant award, a distinguished jury will decide the winner, but you are also invited to participate by awarding the Audience Prize, by voting for your favourite artist.

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Get Involved

A Fianco

Creative community collaboration is what drives us. For this reason, our Artistic Director, Darren Hargan, is thrilled to launch a new orchestra access initiative, a fianco. We will invite some of the most accomplished local musicians from the northwest of Ireland to play with Le Foyer des Artistes for a very special performance, the Young Singers Collective Concert Finale on 16 March 2023.
This is a real community event and the culmination of the Young Singers Collective. Our patrons will have the occasion to hear some of the world’s best young singers from the new generation. 

Internships

Le Foyer des Artistes is a family, and you can be part of it too. We are getting ready to launch a major collaborative initiative which will enable us to connect with passionate young people from all walks of life. Under the expert guidance of our artistic, technical and administrative team, our Internship Programme offers you the invaluable hands-on experience necessary for a career in the creative arts. Work with us to create the future you desire.

Please contact us directly to learn about current opportunities.

Digital TV

We are keen to ensure that our international community and the housebound don’t miss out. Our unique collaboration with the University of Ulster Cinematic Arts and sponsors, Challenge Curve means that we use high-tech equipment and up-to-date high-definition cameras to bring you St Columb’s Hall TV, the Digital Concert Hall to enable you to enjoy the live experience from the comfort of your own home, anywhere in the world.

We warmly extend this service, free of charge, to the infirm and to those in care.


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Jury Chair
Michael McHale

Belfast-born Michael McHale has established himself as one of Ireland’s leading pianists and has developed a busy international career as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. 

He has performed as a soloist with the Minnesota, Hallé, Moscow Symphony and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras, City of London Sinfonia, London Mozart Players and all five of the major Irish orchestras, and performed at the Tanglewood and Tokyo Spring Festivals, Wigmore Hall, London, Berlin Konzerthaus, Lincoln Center, New York, Symphony Hall, Boston and Pesti Vigadó in Budapest. 

Michael’s début solo album The Irish Piano was released in 2012 by RTÉ lyric fm and selected as ‘CD of the Week’ by the critic Norman Lebrecht. More recent solo releases include Schubert: Four Impromptus on Ergodos, Miniatures and Modulations on Grand Piano, and a first orchestral album Irish Piano Concertos featuring works by John Field and Philip Hammond with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Courtney Lewis. His discography of over twenty albums includes releases on Delos, Nimbus Alliance, Champs Hill, and seven duo recital albums on Chandos with Michael Collins. The début album of the McGill/McHale Trio Portraits on Cedille featuring special narrations by Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali was released in 2017 and immediately entered the Top 25 US Billboard Classical Chart. Upcoming releases include a recording of Strauss’s ‘Burleske’ with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on Chandos, and a recording of two new works by Cliff Eidelman with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Winner of the Terence Judd/Hallé Award in 2009, Michael was also awarded the Brennan and Field Prizes at the 2006 AXA Dublin International Piano Competition, the 2005 Camerata Ireland/Accenture Award, and in 2016 a Major Individual Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, and his teachers and mentors include John O’Conor, Réamonn Keary, Christopher Elton, Ronan O’Hora and Barry Douglas. In 2017 Michael was invited to become a Patron of the Ulster Youth Orchestra, and in 2018 he was appointed as a part-time professor of piano for undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Cork School of Music in Ireland.

Michael collaborates regularly with Sir James Galway, Michael Collins, Patricia Rozario, Dame Felicity Lott and Camerata Pacifica. www.michaelmchale.com

“…McHale played with cool authority and understated panache as one expected from a young pianist whose international career is in serious take-off mode…” Dick O’Riordan, Sunday Business Post

“…performed with zest and sensitivity by pianist Michael McHale with the RTÉ National Symphony under Courtney Lewis… McHale makes a potent case for all of it” Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

“…McHale was a wonderfully incisive soloist… this was exactly the sort of headlong, exciting adventure that Prokofiev intended it to be…” Michael Dervan, Irish Times