Sharon Carty & Una Hunt

Pianist Úna Hunt teams up with Irish mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty to take a less travelled road and in their joint repertoire honour works of sung and unsung female composers, such as Joan Trimble and Cécile Chaminade. These wonder women musicians will finally present their programme, including some arias and piano pieces by William V. Wallace, in the Large Room of City Hall on 17th February 2022.

Una Hunt is one of Ireland’s leading pianists and has performed many concertos with Irish orchestras. Particularly noted for her work in rediscovering Irish composers she has curated and performed this repertoire in the USA (including Carnegie Hall) and Russia. Una has released 14 world-premiere recordings including the CD to the rare Album 1854 by Waterford-born composer, William Vincent Wallace – excerpts of which will be performed at the concert. Her Thomas Moore Songbook has been recently published by Carysfort Press/Peter Lang (Dec 2021) with download tracks on Apple Music and Spotify.

In 2019, Una produced the first modern performance of Stanford’s Veiled Prophet opera for Wexford Festival Opera and in June 2022, she will produce Wallace’s sumptuous opera, Lurline, at the National Concert Hall with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Sharon Carty is an alumna of the RIAM Dublin, MDW Vienna, and the Oper Frankfurt Young Artists programme. Her opera repertoire includes many of the important roles for lyric coloratura mezzo-soprano. In demand on the concert platform across Europe, she is also a dedicated recitalist, appearing regularly with Jonathan Ware and Finghin Collins.

Recent opera performances have seen her at Irish National Opera, Oper Frankfurt, Wexford Festival Opera and the Festival di due mondi, Spoleto.

Recordings include Gilbert & Cellier’s comic opera The Mountebanks with the BBC Concert Orchestra, and La Traviata on DVD with the NDR Radiophilhamonie alongside Thomas Hampson and Marina Rebeka. A disc of Schubert songs was released in May 2020 with Jonathan Ware.

“…what made this recital special was the way this partnership captured the inner aspects of the songs… Adjectives seem inadequate for such focused, intelligent artistry.” The Irish Times