Prayers and Truths with Gealán Quartet: Autumn String Quartet Series 2026

Prayers and Truths with Gealán Quartet: Autumn String Quartet Series 2026 is a live string quartet concert at Triskel Arts Centre in Cork on Saturday, 21 November 2026, at 13:00. Tickets cost €18/15. The Gealán Quartet are Gina Maria McGuinness and Eoin Ducrot on violin, Fiachra de hOra on viola and Paul Grennan on cello.

The programme opens with short pieces from Ireland, Spain and Italy and ends with Mendelssohn's F minor quartet. It comprises Sam Perkin's A Gathering [2025], Turina's La Oración Del Torero [1925], Puccini's Crisantemi [1890] and Mendelssohn's String Quartet in F minor Op.80 [1847]. Cork composer Sam Perkin wrote A Gathering for the opening of the 2025 West Cork Chamber Music Festival.

Turina's piece portrays the contrast between a chaotic, festive Madrid bullfight and the toreador praying for his safety. Puccini wrote Crisantemi in 1890 as an elegy on the death of Amadeo I of Spain.

Mendelssohn wrote his F minor quartet in homage to his sister Fanny, who had died a few weeks earlier. The concert belongs to the Autumn String Quartet Series 2026, which Triskel presents with the National String Quartet Foundation.