The Esker Festival Orchestra, one of Europe's most exciting orchestras for emerging young professional and pre-professional musicians, was set up in 2014 to provide a high quality, beneficial and meaningful musical opportunity for young emerging musicians from all across Ireland and for the first time to have an orchestra of this quality and scope based in Galway. The orchestra was set up to fill the musical and social void that currently exists in Ireland by allowing young musicians from across the country to perform together, socialise together and to build relationships that will be essential during their personal and professional lives, to promote and develop orchestral music in Ireland by nurturing the talents of its emerging musicians and crucially to provide all of this with as little financial burden as possible on the musicians themselves. Finally it is unique in that it is entirely led and run by its members for its members, allowing those taking part to gather invaluable first-hand experience in the world of orchestral music. The Esker Festival Orchestra now also welcomes international members each year, allowing musicians from across the world to come to Ireland, perform together and to meet and learn from their international colleagues and peers, further developing the impact and reputation of orchestral music in Ireland and abroad.

The Esker Festival Orchestral is gratefully supported by the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras, the Arts Council of Ireland, RTÉ Supporting the Arts, the Galway Music Residency, The University of Galway and the MTU Cork School of Music.

Peter Joyce - Director, Founder and Conductor

Peter Joyce is a prize winning Irish musician, conductor and composer whose musical identity has been strongly developed by his early experiences with jazz, music theory, his vigorous training in Viennese Classicism and Modernism and his ongoing passion for contemporary music and experimental as well as traditional musical theatre.

Winner of the 1st Prize and Orchestra Prize of the 2023 Irish National “Feis Ceoil” Conducting Competition, Peter Joyce has worked in symphonic, musical theatre, opera and choral settings including his debut in the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein with the Akademische Philharmonie Vienna, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Sofia National Philharmonic, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic, Pro-Arte Orchestra Vienna, Orchestra of the Technical University Vienna, Max Brand Ensemble, Ensemble Ars Nova, the Webern Ensemble and the Webern Chamber Choir, and with the ORF as a musical assistant for live broadcasts from the Vienna State Opera. In 2024 Peter will make debuts with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra and Szolnok Symphony Orchestra.

A champion of new music, Peter has performed and conducted premieres of many new works by Irish and international composers. As a composer Peter's own works have been performed throughout Europe by groups such as the Arditti Quartet, Quartetto Prometeo, the Kandinsky Quartet, the Webern Ensemble, Platypus Ensemble and at festivals such as Wien Modern. In 2020 he was the winner of the Feis Ceoil IMRO Composition Award. 

He is a music graduate of Trinity College Dublin where he began composing, arranging and conducting, later studying conducting with Dr. Geoffrey Spratt. Peter continued his musical education by studying conducting with Mark Stringer and composition with Detlev Müller-Siemens at the renowned University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and has capped it off in masterclasses with Peter Eötvös, Marin Alsop, Sian Edwards, Salvatore Sciarrino and Stefano Gervasoni among many others.

Peter is the founder and conductor of the Esker Festival Orchestra, Ireland's longest established, and one of Europe's most exciting orchestras for emerging young professional musicians with whom he just celebrated their 10th anniversary with lauded performances of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony.

Zoë Nagle - Cello Soloist 2024

23 year old Zoë Nagle is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, Germany, in the class of Julian Steckel. She completed her part-time musical studies at the MTU Cork School of Music in 2019, where she was a student of Christopher Marwood, and in 2016, she spent two months studying with Professor Gotthard Popp at the Robert Schumann Hochschule für Musik in Düsseldorf.

Zoë has performed solo in venues worldwide, including the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the Joseph Kosma Auditorium in Nice, France, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, New York. As an orchestral musician, most recently she enjoyed a tour with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and soprano Diana Damrau, with performances in the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Isarphilharmonie in Munich, and the Vienna Konzerthaus in December 2022.

Following her solo debut with the New York Concerti Sinfonietta in Carnegie Hall, New York, she was praised for “soaring in the lyrical variations in a confident, highly musical performance” of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme (The Epoch Times).

In her native Cork, in celebration of the centenary of the work’s composition, Zoë performed Elgar’s Cello Concerto alongside the MTU CSM Symphony Orchestra in November 2019. Other notable performances include a concert at the 2022 CelloBiennale Amsterdam, a recital as the Rising Star at the Killaloe Music Festival in June 2021, as well as appearing in the ‘Young Musicians of the Future’ concert at Barry Douglas’ Clandeboye Festival.

Zoë has been a multiple first prizewinner in competitions throughout Ireland over the years. These have included 1st place in the Clyde Twelvetrees Cup,1st place for the third time in the Breda Cullen Cup and 1st place in the Elsner Memorial Cup at the Feis Ceoil in Dublin. She was also awarded first prize in the MTU CSM’s Senior Recital Competition, Advanced Recital Competition and Senior Concerto Competition during the same year.

Zoë has participated in many masterclasses with renowned cellists such as Gary Hoffman, Jérôme Pernoo, Adrian Brendel, Xenia Jankovic, Peter Bruns, Daniel Müller- Schott, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Sebastian Klinger, Louise Hopkins, Hannah Roberts and Andrés Díaz.

Passionate about chamber music, Zoë has performed in the National String Quartet Foundation’s Chamber Music Gathering at the National Concert Hall. She has participated in the masterclass programme of the 2018, 2019 and 2022 West Cork Chamber Music Festivals, receiving tuition from members of the Vanbrugh, Danel, Apollon Musagète and Chiaroscuro quartets, as well as performers including Alina Ibragimova, Kirill Troussov, Maxim Rysanov, Liana Gourdjia and Andreas Reiner.