Pianos took centre-stage in the National Concert Hall this week. Scottish and Irish students on a whirlwind tour from Glasgow, to Dublin and back to Glasgow via Belfast, brought the house down at a gala concert.
Thérese Fahy, director of chamber music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, proudly surveyed the Irish students and their counterparts from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, all playing together under the baton of British conductor Richard Armstrong.
"It's really exciting and wonderful to see the energy of the two schools," she said.
Lance Coburn, the Dublin-based Australian concert pianist, and winner of the Cologne International Piano Competition last year, took a starring role on the stage as he played the Third Piano Concerto by Sergei Prokofiev. His blond hair tumbled about from his exuberance and exertions.
The 100 music students had only met for the first time in Glasgow the week before. It shows that music "is a great international language", said Martin Hughes, head of strings at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
"It underscores the growing bonds between Ireland and Scotland," said Jim Wallace, Scotland's deputy First Minister, who chatted to Bridget McConnell, director of Glasgow's city council.
This Dublin leg of the four-concert tour, entitled Hands Across the Sea, was attended by John O'Conor, director of the RIAM, who is off to perform over two weeks at Christmas in the Caribbean on the QE2. Laurie Cearr, of the AXA International Piano Competition, said she was gearing up to organise a celebratory concert in Dublin Castle to mark Phillippe Cassard's 40th birthday, the first winner of the competition 14 years ago. He's coming back for the concert on November 26th.
Irish concert pianist Finghin Collins says he's off to Houston to play the Mozart Concerto with the Houston Symphony Orchestra.
Talk about a jet-setting life-style. It's better than rock 'n' roll.