The two best classical music shows to see this week

Saturday, July 27th

Didzis Kalnins
King House, Boyle
Latvian pianist Didzis Kalnins has been studying for a doctorate at the Royal Irish Academy of Music since 2018. He's involved in two concerts this week. He gives a morning (11am) concert at Boyle Arts Festival where his programme includes the intriguingly titled Four Etudes for the Steinway sostenuto pedal by Latvian composer Lucija Garuta (1902-77). The sostenuto pedal has been amusingly described as "that third pedal in the middle that hardly anyone uses". It allows the sound of selected individual notes or chords to be sustained when the fingers are busy elsewhere. Unlike the standard sustaining pedal it doesn't sustain any and every note being played while it is depressed. The programme is completed by some Debussy Preludes and Scriabin's Poems, Op. 32. Kalnins is also in action in Dublin at lunchtime (1.05pm) on Friday, where he joins the RTÉ Contempo Quartet at the NCH John Field Room for Schumann's Piano.

Sunday, July 28th

Gyula Nagy, Judit Máté
St Michael's Church, Dún Laoghaire
The latest programme in the annual organ series at St Michael's Church, Dún Laoghaire, is given by two Dublin-based Hungarian musicians. Baritone Gyula Nagy is an alumnus of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House in London, and took the title role in Opera Collective Ireland's production of Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses last year. Judit Máté is the organist and musical director of St Jude the Apostle Church in Templeogue. Their programme offers music by composers from Germany (Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn), Ireland (Charles Villiers Stanford) and Hungary (Paul I, Prince Esterházy of Galántha, Franz Liszt, Dezso Antalffy-Sziross, Ferenc Farkas and Zoltán Gárdonyi). The concert starts at 8pm.