Hellas Ensemble: A Celtic-Hellenic Celebration with Ian McElhinney and Bruce Clark

Introduced by Bruce Clark and featuring Ian McElhinney

Seamus Heaney made two journeys through Greece, where he delighted in the landscape's classical connections as well as its unchanging physical beauty. One Journey in 1995 took him to Sparta and Pylos where news of the Nobel Prize win eventually filtered through. Another, in 1997, included Olympia and Delphi. Heaney drew on these travels to write six Sonnets from Hellas, which joyfully interweave ancient and modern Greek themes as well as intimations of his native Ireland.

The resulting verses are a glorious Greek-Irish fusion which veers between the playful, the tragic and the transcendent. Following a short historical presentation of the Greek bouzouki and its introduction into Irish music and culture by Bruce Clark, the seven-strong Hellas Ensemble - featuring Nikos Petsakos on Greek bouzouki and Martin Coyle on Irish bouzouki – will perform six new works inspired by Heaney’s Sonnets from Hellas, with narration from stage and screen star Ian McElhinney.