Culture
27 Nov 19

SOAK, Lisa O'Neill and more to perform as part of NCH's Imagining Ireland

SOAK, Lisa O'Neill and more to perform as part of NCH's <i>Imagining Ireland</i>

Soak at All Together Now 2019 Sunday. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Next February, some of Ireland's leading female artists get together to celebrate women's voices in Irish literature, music and poetry today.

The National Concert Hall just announced the line-up for Imagining Ireland: Speaking Up, Singing Louder. The stellar cast features some of Ireland's leading female writers, singers and performers, such as SOAK, Lisa O'Neill, Radie Peat, Sorcha Richardson with Eimear McBride, Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen, Sinéad Gleeson, Denise Chaila, Wendy Erskine and Sara Baume.

Curated by author of Constellations and editor of The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, Sinéad Gleeson and Gary Sheehan of the NCH, the specially produced event celebrates the groundswell of women's voices in Irish literature, music and poetry today.

The event will take place on Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 8pm. Tickets for NCH's Imagining Ireland: Speaking Up, Singing Louder go on sale this Friday, November 29 at 10am from www.nch.ie.

The evening sees performances from Art-pop auteur SOAK who creates emotionally probing songs of startling candor; singer-songwriter Lisa O'Neill whose unvarnished folk has won widespread praise and awards this year; one of the remarkable voices of new folk and celebrated traditional and folk singer Radie Peat (of prize-winning band Lankum), and singer-songwriter Sorcha Richardson whose debut First Prize Bravery marks the arrival of a major new artist.

Speaking up will celebrate authors who represent the leading lights of an acclaimed generation of Irish writers: Eimear McBride (A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, Strange Hotel), Sara Baume (A Line Made by Walking), Wendy Erskine (Sweet Home), Sinéad Gleeson (Constellations) and Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen (Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling, The Importance of Being Aisling). Sinéad, Emer and Sarah were recently announced winners in the recent An Post Irish Book Awards 2019.

Word and music meet in the work of Denise Chaila, a Zambian-Irish rapper, singer and poet hailing from Chikankata, Zambia and based in Limerick. Her music blends spoken word and rap to give voice to the sound of a transatlantic odyssey.

Imagining Ireland 2020 will also be performed at the Barbican, London on February 21, produced by NCH and Serious UK, supported by Culture Ireland.