back at The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon for the Hunters Moon Festival 2023. I’m revisiting the I-Ching as musical score in a performance of my 2009 solo work ‘Cage of Change’. Originally composed during a period of mentorship under sculptor John Gibbons this performance will include recorded voice from John, words which had significantly shaped my approach to divining sound from this ancient Chinese text at the time. Saturday evening, The Dock Arts, (time tba) Tickets and full line up please visit www.thedock.ie

25 years on… Come catch our sellout show at Arthur’s Blues and Jazz Club, Thomas St. Dublin. Book early to tune in to another exciting instalment of The Dirty Jazz Club. Spontaneous arrangements of Monk, Coltrane , Mingus & more. Featuring Cathal Roche alto, Colm O’Hara trombone, Conor Murray Drums, Derek Whyte bass, Darragh O’Kelly Keys. Tickets €17

Cork’s foundational duo The Quiet Club are joined by extraordinary saxophonist Cathal Roche. Concert also includes Memory Echo: a short film featuring Pauline Oliveros by Andrew Deutsch with music by Stephen Vitiello and Danny McCarthy.

Tickets: €10 at the door (including food)

Part of Sonic Vigil presents: In Your Own Time and Place, with:
• the Irish Premiere of Daniel Weintraub’s ground-breaking documentary on Pauline Oliveros
• Renowned experimental music group Quiet Music Ensemble
• Ireland’s celebrated improvisation duo Quiet Club with saxophonist Cathal Roche
• Memory Echo: a short film featuring Pauline Oliveros by Andrew Deutsch
• The eleventh iteration of Cork’s unique improvisation marathon, Sonic Vigil.

Funded by Arts Council Ireland.

See less

North by Northwest Quartet - Rollins by Night

Cathal Roche - saxophones Phil Robson -guitar

Conor Murray - bass David Lyttle - drums

Leitrim saxophonist Cathal Roche who recently brought his Duke Ellington project to the Island Theatre Ballinamore returns with a new Jazz quartet composed of musicians from Leitrim, Roscommon, Donegal, and Belfast to pay tribute to the music of legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins.

‘‘…I started performing jazz as a 14 year old busker 30 years ago under Dublin’s Merchant Arch after hearing Sonny Rollins’ album ‘The Bridge’ for the first time. Sonny instantly became a hero and a guide of mine. As a recording of jazz standards ‘The Bridge’ sounded completely different from anything I’d heard before. Sonny’s playful tenor saxophone sound is searching and personal, somehow carrying something of the night’s street sounds from the Williamsburg Bridge, in New York, a bridge on which Sonny practiced during a two year sabbatical from performing prior to the album being recorded. This man’s music and openness gave jazz musicians a licence to play solo and absorb, to draw off people and places, and to make things more spontaneous, more heartfelt and personal…’’

Cathal’s new group The N x NW Quartet will revisit some of Rollins’ favourite tunes in the spirit and sax-guitar combo of The Bridge and features the talents of legendary UK guitarist Phil Robson (Roscommon), Donegal double bassist Conor Murray (One half of twin duo the Murray Brothers), and Belfast drummer Dr David Lyttle.

HUNTERS MOON (MINI MOON) Solo set (final set c. 6.30pm) at St. Georges Church, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim.

Festival runs all day at St Georges Church, Carrick on Shannon:

Joh Tuohy, Martin Brunsden, Sorcha Fox & Amir Abualrob, The Clumsy Giantess with Trenchurian & Diarmuid Mac Diarmada, Natalia & Eimear Reidy perform Whose Woods These Are and Cathal Roche.

COI church, Kinlough, Co. Leitrim. Unfortunately the Richard Nelson sextet performance on the 9th of December is no longer going to be open to the public. The event is being recorded on the night and will be available on the usual media platforms, stay tuned for updates.

Spilt Milk Festival Sligo presents Cathal Roche (solo saxophone) live @ The Yeats Building. (Free Admission).

Sligo Jazz presents Conor Murray, David Lyttle, Cathal Roche (venue TBC)

Cork Jazz Festival 2021. New sax trio with Dan Walsh, drums and Sean Maynard Smith, bass. We’re playing live at OSHO, Barrack St, Cork. Teas and Beers available.

Cork Jazz Festival 2021. New sax trio with Dan Walsh, drums and Sean Maynard Smith, bass. We’re playing live at OSHO, Barrack St, Cork. Teas and Beers available.

Cork Jazz Festival 2021. New sax trio with Dan Walsh, drums and Sean Maynard Smith, bass. We’re playing live at OSHO, Barrack St, Cork. Teas and Beers available.

Cork Jazz Festival 2021. New sax trio with Dan Walsh, drums and Sean Maynard Smith, bass. We’re playing live at OSHO, Barrack St, Cork. Teas and Beers available.

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland’s Covid Response Award, The Dog Ate My Homework is a 6 movement work released online for binaural listening (headphones) in 6 instalments over 12 weeks starting on October 14th. Each movement combines immersive field recordings, woodwind octet and spoken word describing working from home during the Irish ‘lockdown’ from a different vocation’s perspective. Please mark the date and time and check back for streaming link!

Ian Wilson - Cathal Roche

This concert will host 2 premieres as part of Culture Night 2019 at the Model in Sligo.

Programme

The Resurrection of Carlo Gesualdo (Premiere).

Immersive music Installation of multi-tracked saxophone and voice. This work will debut my use of a 32 speaker Dome array for 3D immersive music and will explore the life and music of Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo (1566 – 1613).

Ian Wilson (new Work)

A new collaborative project in development with composer Ian Wilson featuring myself on contra-alto clarinet and baritone saxophone and Dutch saxophonist Ties Mellema also on Baritone as co-soloists.

Sligo Jazz 2019:

Cathal Roche's Blues and the Sligo Truth is a new jazz suite which mines local reels, jigs and hornpipes to assimilate the melodic and modal intensities of the Sligo musical tradition within a jazz setting.  Through an harmonic and temporal sensibility of the post-bop era, Roche drives pulsating and elusive melodies through improvisational forms and modulating time.  The group of Irish jazz musicians assembled for the session include saxophonists Cathal Roche and Matt Halpin, pianist Scott Flanagan, bassist Conor Murray, with drummer Steve Davis being joined by John Joe Kelly on Bodhrán. 

Theatre debut for this new trad-fusion group blending Sligo traditional tunes with jazz harmonic forms and improvisations. John Joe Kelly, bodhrán,  Seamie O’Dowd, guitar, Cathal Roche, saxophones, Kieran Quinn, piano. Tickets: https://www.hawkswell.com/events/event/the-gateway-city-project