New York, NY (Top40 Charts) With a wide-ranging programme featuring familiar landmarks, creative adventures and musical surprises,
Daniel Hope's latest Deutsche Grammophon album comes out today, 5 July 2024. The release coincides with news of Hope's appointment as the next Intendant and Artistic
Director of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and Academy, a role he assumes as of 1 November 2025. Irish
Roots is available on CD, digitally and on vinyl (2 LPs). Limited-edition versions of both the CD and the vinyl album - including an art card signed by
Daniel Hope - are available exclusively from the DG Store.
Brought up on stories of his paternal great-grandfather
Daniel McKenna, who left Ireland in the 1890s to build a new life in South Africa, Hope has always been intrigued by Irish music and culture. As well as making a documentary for ARTE and WDR entitled Celtic Dreams:
Daniel Hope's Hidden Irish History, first aired in spring 2022, the violinist has been delving deeper into the connections between folk and classical music in Ireland, informed by performance experiences with award-winning Irish band Lúnasa and the research of musicologist Olivier Fourés.
"Olivier even told me about unique versions of Vivaldi's music preserved in the Library of
Trinity College Dublin as slip jigs, which were probably only played in Ireland," recalls Hope. "I began thinking about how to broaden a programme to include traditional Irish tunes like
Molly Malone and
Danny Boy and Baroque pieces that were popular in Ireland, and began testing some ideas in concert over some years. Irish
Roots grew out of that."
Alongside a selection of traditional favourites, Irish
Roots presents works by the great bard and harpist Turlough O'Carolan, and music by 20th-century composer Ina Boyle, as well as classical pieces by visitors to Dublin such as Kusser, and the fifth of Vivaldi's L'estro armonico concertos, a smash hit in Ireland 300 years ago.
Daniel Hope is joined by a stellar line-up of guest artists, including Lúnasa, harpist Siobhán Armstrong, flautists Sir
James and Lady Jeanne Galway, singer Rea Garvey, multi-instrumentalist and folk musician Ross Daly, AIR Ensemble and the Thessaloniki
State Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Daniel Geiss.
