Dean Power & James Hurley

Tenor Dean Power will sing settings of texts by some of Ireland’s best-known writers and poets, composed and arranged by pianist James Hurley, who will accompany Dean on piano. Highlights of the programme will include a selection of chamber music originally written by James Joyce, as well as settings of Easter 1916, The Lake Isle of Inisfree and The Salley Gardens by WB Yeats.

Moore’s Melodies are always popular with audiences and Dean and James will bring us their interpretation of The Last Rose of Summer and The Star of the County Down. You will also some intriguing settings of poems by Oscar Wilde and by Fanny Parnell, sister of Charles Stewart Parnell. Dean and James will close out the concert with a song from Newfoundland, to honour Waterford’s links with that region.

Irish tenor Dean Power is a current Cara O’Sullivan Associate Artist at Cork Opera House and is a former member of the ensemble at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Dean’s recent operatic engagements have included singing Jaquino in a unique semi-staged performance of Fidelio under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel with The Dudamel Foundation. He also debuted at the Salzburger Festspiele, for Irish National Opera –

On the concert platform, Dean has performed at the Royal Albert Hall with the L.S.O, at Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos in Lisbon, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Symphony orchestra and the National Concert Orchestra. In 2024, he made his Armenian debut singing the arias in J.S Bach’s Johannes Passion conducted by Christopher Moulds.

James Hurley is a classical pianist with a passion for improvisation. He studied piano performance at the Memorial University of Newfoundland (2008) and music at the New England Conservatory, Boston (2010). In 2011, James moved to Germany, where he and his wife opened Più Piano – a live performance venue and piano school, located in Neuburg an der Donau. In 2017 he released a solo piano CD entitled Nightscapes, and has since curated hours of live improvisations which continue to be released on streaming platforms.