THINGS have been looking brighter for the Irish Chamber Orchestra, which is planning a London appearance this summer under Franco Gull and taking to the recording studio for two discs for the ASV label. Before all of that, however, the orchestra's artistic director and leader, violinist Fionnuala Hunt, below, will be heard in her own right at a Sunday afternoon concert series at IMMA, beginning next Sunday.

When invited to plan the four concerts, she says, her first move was to bring together a group of ICO players for a programme of Mendelssohn's Octet and Brahms's String Sextet in B flat, a pairing she's long thought about but is only now managing to bring together, for Sunday, May 25th. Her other programme choices reflect some established working relationships and some new ones.

She's joined by her pianist sister, Una, on Sunday, June 1st, for a programme including Beethoven's Spring Sonata, which Fionnuala is actually tackling for the first time. The Dublin Piano Trio (with Una at the keyboard and cellist Aisling Drury Byrne) will play trios by Haydn and Beethoven on Sunday, June 8th, when they will be joined by soprano Orla Boylan (who impressed Fionnuala in an ICO Messiah last year) for some of Beethoven's Irish folk song settings.

Roger Vignoles, who conducted that Messiah, will be heard in his more familiar role of pianist in the opening concert on Sunday next, when the guests in songs by Schubert will be soprano Franzita Whelan and baritone Joe Corbett.