ARTIST SPOTLIGHT:
Tara Viscardi

Harpist Tara Viscardi presents a solo recital at Dublin HandelFest 2025, where she will explore keyboard and vocal works by Handel, arranged for the Italian baroque triple harp, alongside early music from Ireland, England and central Europe. The strength of Handel's connections to Dublin sit at the centre of this programme, leading to musical pathways which stretch across Europe.

 

An IBO Associate Artist for 2025, Tara Viscardi hails from the Beara Peninsula in the South-West of Ireland and performs on Irish traditional, classical and baroque harps.

 

Praised for her music being ”exquisitely performed” (The Times) Tara was 1st prize winner of the 2021 London Camac Harp Competition. A graduate of the Royal College of Music, she has performed all over Ireland and the UK, in major venues such as Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall. She’s been featured on BBC Radio 3 and RTÉ Radio; She performed at the 13th World Harp Congress Hong Kong, for The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins; also for HM King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Hillsborough Castle.

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Full programme:

Claudio Monteverdi (1567 – 1643) arr. Tara Viscardi 

Si dolce è’l tormento

Barbara Strozzi (1619 – 1677) arr. Tara Viscardi 

Che si può fare

Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c. 1545 – 1607) Toccata del quarto tuono

 

Turlough Carolan (1670 – 1738) arr. Tara Viscardi 

Miss Fetherston (Carolan’s Devotion)

Madame Cole

Miss MacDermott (The Princess Royal)

 

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) Prelude in C Major, BWV 846

George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759) Keyboard Suite in D minor, HWV 437

arr. Tara Viscardi

I. Allemande

II. Courante

III. Sarabande

IV. Gigue

 

Thomas Connellan (c. 1625 – 1698) Cecila Connellan

arr. Tara Viscardi Jigg to the Jointure

Trad. arr. John Parry Through the Wood Laddie

Henry Purcell (c. 1659 - 1695) arr. Tara Viscardi 

Rondeau and Hornpipe (from Abdelazer-Suite Z. 570)

Tara Viscardi (b. 1995) Midnight Over Glanmore Lake

George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)arr. Tara Viscardi Lascia ch'io pianga (from Rinaldo)

George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759) arr. Tara Viscardi 

Keyboard Suite in G minor, HWV 432

VI. Passacaille