Breakthrough Albert Hall solo gig for Robert
Saxophonist Robert Finegan from Ardee is set to play his first solo performance in the Royal Albert Hall, London on Thursday November 28.
He has been selected as one of the opening acts for the Champions Tennis Tournament, which features some of the world’s leading tennis champions. The attendance is expected to be around 3,000 people; so no pressure.
Robert started his musical education in the Ardee Concert Band at the age of 8 and is still a very proud member of the band.
The 22 year old recently graduated from TU Dublin, formerly DIT Conservatory of Music with a First Class Honours Degree in Music Performance studying with saxophonist Kevin Hanafin and also won the McNamara Medal for Best End of Year Performance. He continues his studies this year in the Royal College of Music, London with saxophonist Kyle Horch after receiving the Dr. Michael West scholarship.
The piece he selected for the performance is Gershwin’s ‘ Three Preludes’ which he’ll perform on soprano saxophone with accompanist SiYu Sun who is studying piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London.
In October of this year he was invited to perform in Sitges, Spain for the Creative Connexions Festival where he performed with many Irish traditional musicians and dancers together with his group from TU Dublin.
This has followed on from success at the Sligo Feis Ceoil where he won the RTE Lyric FM Music Bursary together with the Solo Woodwind trophy and Repertoire Cup.
Last year he was named as the first Yanagisawa Saxophone Artist and Vandoren Reed endorsee from the Republic of Ireland.
To date Robert has played with the RTE National Synphony Orchestra, Royal College of Music ‘New Perspectives’, DIT Chamber Orchestra, Hibernian Orchestra, Irish Symphonic Wind Orchestra and SinfoNua Orchestra under conductors David Brophy, John Finucane, Duncan Ward, Liam Daly and Mark Heron. He also represented Ireland at the World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb.