In November 2022 the IDO played in Dublin for the first time. On this occasion we were lucky to work with Dr Ciarán Crilly who not only conducted us but was also instrumental in helping to organise the rehearsal weekend and concert. Ciarán is head of the UCD school of Music and a lecturer in Orchestral conducting. He has been Conductor/Artistic director of the UCD Symphony Orchestra since its foundation in 2002. We rehearsed and performed in the Ad Astra hall in UCD under his expert guidance. The orchestra  committee decided to donate proceeds to Safetynet Primary Care , which is a medical charity that delivers quality care to those marginalised in society without access to healthcare

We welcomed back players from our previous concert and were also delighted to have new members.

Our programme opened with Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture. We then played two movements of the  well-known second Shostakovich  Piano Concerto with Emily Boyle, a founding member of IDO on the piano. We returned to Brahms for our final work and played his Fourth Symphony.

It was an intensive but enjoyable weekend with a real improvement in the orchestra over the rehearsal period. The concert went extremely well despite it only being our second public performance and there was very positive feedback from both audience and orchestra members.