National Symphony Orchestra Ireland

National Symphony Orchestra Ireland celebrates John O’Conor at 80 and Beethoven 200

David Brophy conductor

John O’Conor piano

Beethoven Leonore Overture No. 3

Elgar Enigma Variations

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3

National Symphony Orchestra Ireland proudly returns to University Concert Hall, Limerick for a landmark celebration: the 80th birthday of John O’Conor, one of Ireland’s foremost musicians, and a programme marking the 200th anniversary year of Beethoven’s death. Under the baton of the dynamic and charismatic David Brophy, this is a concert of grandeur, nobility and drama.

Renowned worldwide as ‘the world’s premier Beethoven interpreter’ (CD Review), O’Conor joins National Symphony Orchestra Ireland as part of a programme that honours both his lifelong artistic relationship with Beethoven and the enduring brilliance of a composer who transformed the course of music. The performance takes place as part of the National Concert Hall’s 2026/2027 Season. It will be preceded by a performance at the National Concert Hall on Friday 15 January. John O’Conor was awarded the NCH Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

About the music

Dark, urgent and dramatic, Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto marked a decisive turning point in the composer’s creative evolution. From its shadowy orchestral opening to the sparkling finale, it pits soloist and orchestra in a thrilling dialogue of storm and light. With its brooding C-minor intensity, lyrical slow movement and irrepressible final rondo, this is Beethoven at his most compelling –music of struggle, wit and triumphant energy.

Beethoven’s thrilling Leonore Overture No. 3 for his only opera, Fidelio, is conceived on the grandest of scales. Full of fire and fervour, it remains one of the most electrifying overtures in the orchestral repertoire. That titan of opera, Richard Wagner, described it as ‘the most perfect drama in itself’.

Forged from and with love, Elgar’s Enigma Variations is one of music’s most affectionate and mysterious masterpieces. Through a series of miniature musical portraits of friends (and himself in the final variation), it is, by turns, warm, witty, noble, and deeply moving in its Edwardian nobility.