Good pairings: The best classical music and opera concerts this week

Friday 26th

Tara Erraught, John O'Conor
NCH, Dublin
It's a first-time collaboration between Tara Erraught, Ireland's most successful mezzo-soprano, and pianist John O'Conor, 2017 recipient of the NCH Lifetime Achievement Award. The big works on offer are Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Rossini's substantial but rarely-heard 1832 cantata Giovanna d'Arco. The other composers featured in the 8pm concert are Liszt, Richard Strauss, Copland, and Ivor Novello.

Sunday 28th

Sharon Carty, Siobhán Armstrong
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

Mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty is one of those Irish singers who straddles the worlds of mainstream opera and period performance style. She made her Wexford Festival Opera debut last year in the European premiere of William Bolcom's Dinner at Eight, and also starred in Irish National Opera's recent tour of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice with the Irish Baroque Orchestra. Today's Sundays at Noon concert in the Hugh Lane Gallery finds her partnered on baroque harp by Siobhán Armstrong for a programme that will include works by Henry Purcell, Barbara Strozzi and John Dowland, as well as traditional Irish songs.