<img src='' title='Event Category: Festival' alt='' id='templ_icon_' width='' height='' /> Event Category: Festival

SFSH – Jon Hopkins presents Embodiment Breathwork

Jon Hopkins presents Embodiment Breathwork, an immersive playback with Fearne Cotton.

Followed by an improvisation with Shahzad Ismaily, Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh and La Force.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Under 16’s must be accompanied by and seated next to a parent/guardian aged 18+

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

Guinness Cork Jazz Festival 2025 – The Pharcyde : 30 Years of Labcabincalifornia

An influential alternative rap quartet from South Central Los Angeles, the Pharcyde was formed by MCs/producers Tre ‘Slimkid’ Hardson, Derrick ‘Fatlip’ Stewart, Imani Wilcox, and Romye ‘Booty Brown’ Robinson. Hardson, Wilcox, and Robinson were all dancers and choreographers who met on the L.A. underground club circuit in the late ’80s, worked together for a while, and served a stint as dancers on In Living Color. Stewart, meanwhile, performed at local clubs and eventually hooked up with the others in 1990.

Under the tutelage of Reggie Andrews, a local high-school music teacher, the group learned about the music industry and the process of recording an album. They landed a deal with Delicious Vinyl in 1991, and a year later released their eccentric debut album, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, which went gold. After support slots for De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest as well as a successful spot on Lollapalooza’s second stage in 1994, the group released its second album, Labcabincalifornia, which was calmer than their first but no less warped.

After a five-year break which saw little action except for the debut of Stewart as a solo rapper (his single ‘What’s Up Fatlip’ became an underground hit), the Pharcyde returned in late 2000 with their third album, Plain Rap.

Band members: Imani, Fatlip & Slimkid3.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Strictly 18+.

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

Guinness Cork Jazz Festival 2025 – Orchestra Baobab

Founded in 1970 in Dakar, Orchestra Baobab is more than just a band—it is an institution, a cornerstone of African music. Initially a club formation inspired by the Afro-Cuban fever that swept through West Africa, Baobab quickly forged a unique style, blending Mandinka, Wolof, and Serer sounds with Latin rhythms and timeless elegance. From their first golden era to their remarkable resurgence in the early 2000s, led by Nick Gold (Buena Vista Social Club), the band has continuously reinvented its legacy, captivating each generation with its hypnotic groove.

Seven years of waiting—an eternity. But Orchestra Baobab never returns without reason. Made In Sénégal, set for release in October 2025, is more than just an album; it is a love letter to Senegal, to its roots, and its musical future.

Always balancing tradition and modernity, Baobab’s strings and brass resonate with the rhythms of an entire nation. From Casamance to Fouta, from Dakar to Saint-Louis, each track explores a different facet of Senegalese musical heritage. From the intimate clubs of Dakar to the world’s biggest stages, Orchestra Baobab has seen and lived it all. But this new album—blending swaying rumba, Mandinka sounds, and Afro-Cuban echoes—reminds us of one essential truth: their music is eternal.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Strictly 18+.

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

Guinness Cork Jazz Festival 2025 – Jeff Mills Presents Tomorrow Comes The Harvest.

Tomorrow Comes The Harvest is the accumulative efforts of talented musicians and their visions about what makes the art form of music so special, a theory initiated and put into action by late Afro Beat creator and Nigerian Drummer Tony Allen and Detroit Techno’s Jeff Mills.

Each belonging to a long tradition of using music to reach higher levels of consciousness, along with veteran keyboardist Jean – Phi Dary, the three toured internationally until the untimely death of Tony Allen in 2020. The foundation of the concept was cemented and ready for continuation; Mills reconfigures the concept to function as trio once again and invites Tabla virtuoso Prabhu Edouard to join the concept.

Tomorrow Comes The Harvest is about exploring the unknown, transcending by the way of intersecting sounds and rhythm through an array of improvisational movements.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Strictly 18+.

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

Guinness Cork Jazz Festival 2025 – Cymande

Cymande (sah-man-day) is one of the most influential black British bands of the 1970s, known for blending jazz, funk, soul, and Caribbean rhythms into a sound that was political, spiritual, and ahead of its time.

Formed in South London by Caribbean immigrants, the group found early success in the US – performing at the Apollo – while facing indifference at home, leading to a decades-long hiatus. Their music lived on through heavy sampling by hip-hop legends like De La Soul and The Fugees. Now, in 2025, Cymande return with Renascence, their first album in over 40 years—celebrated by fans and critics alike for its signature grooves and fresh collaborations, including Jazzie B and Celeste.

A recent documentary, Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande, highlights their enduring legacy, and the band is currently on tour, reaching new global audiences and younger fans inspired by their timeless sound.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Strictly 18+.

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

SFSH – 37d03d MixTape x Cork Opera House Concert Orchestra

A very unique evening in store as Sounds from a Safe Harbour welcomes special guests from the 37d artist residency, to perform a specially-curated night of song with the Cork Opera House Concert Orchestra.

Featuring new arrangements by Bryce Dessner & Kate Ellis with Ben Howard, Angie McMahon, Amanda Bergman, David Kitt, Efterklang, Gordi, Jon Hopkins, Laoise Leahy, Leif Vollebekk, Max Porter, S. Carey, Sam Amidon, Soak, The Staves and The Vernon Spring.

The Cork Opera House Concert Orchestra was founded in November 2015 to enhance the musical offering of Cork Opera House. The Orchestra has since played a very significant role in the music industry in Cork, and has formed a significant part of Cork Opera House’s artistic programme.

Since its foundation, the orchestra has undertaken numerous concert performances of classic operas with great Irish and international opera talent, as well as large-scale in-house productions such as the Right Here Right Now Festival, The Cork Proms, and our annual Christmas Concerts. This has allowed the Orchestra to work with many great Irish artists across a multitude of genres, often with original orchestrations by some of the most exciting orchestrators and arrangers in Ireland today.

 

 

This event is supported by Meitheal Architects.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Under 16’s must be accompanied by and seated next to a parent/guardian aged 18+

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

SFSH – Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi

Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable.

A two-time GRAMMY Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art.

As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Under 16’s must be accompanied by and seated next to a parent/guardian aged 18+

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

SFSH – Festival Finale hosted by Efterklang

We all have witnesses to our journey through life. Family, friends, partners or colleagues who have followed us on our way. Many of them don’t want us to change. They want us to stay the same forever, to maintain the same old position that we have always had in our community. That’s not the case for Efterklang. The Danish trio has always been an open family, with room for new ideas, radical shifts and changing collaborators. A band in flux.

With their new, seventh studio album Things We Have In Common, a circle closes. The process began with Altid Sammen, the band’s fifth album, and continued with their sixth, 2021’s Windflowers. For Efterklang, these albums represented an opening up towards a simpler, more inclusive, means of expression. It feels like the band has let go: harmonic tensions are gentler, the tonal language more straightforward. Altid Sammen explored the human community; Windflowers examined the relationship between human beings and nature. And Things We Have In Common is about collective spirituality and belonging.

There is a generosity at play on this record. This is music open to longing souls and aching beings, offering the possibility of both enlightenment and relief. This is music of arms reaching out and healing hands. The sound of giving, receiving and accepting that everything changes.

“We took part in the People/37d03d residency in Berlin 2018 and we’ve played SFSH in 2019 – both times feeling we were part of something very special and life changing in fact! We are humbled and excited to be hosting the finale this year!”

Efterklang has become an open community with three permanent members: Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen and Rasmus Stolberg. Pianist and composer Rune Mølgaard left Efterklang after the Parades album in 2007 but he has circled around the band, to varying degrees, since then. On the new album, he has co-written seven of the nine songs.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Under 16’s must be accompanied by and seated next to a parent/guardian aged 18+

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

SFSH – Remembering Talos

‘Remembering Talos’ – a deeply personal opening night tribute to the late Eoin French, a beloved artist and friend—created with many of Eoin’s friends and collaborators.

Alex Sampson / Atli Örvarsson / Ben Bix / Brian Dillon / Brían French / Christof Van Der Ven / Cian Hanley / Gemma Doherty / Jon Hopkins / Kate Ellis / La Force / Laoise Leahy / Lisa Hannigan / Loah / Memorial / Niamh Regan / Nick Rayner / Rosie Carney / S. Carey / Sam McNicholl / Sonny Sampson / Steph French / The Staves / Ye Vagabonds performing live with Ólafur Arnalds and Sandrayati Fay appearing remotely.

Eoin French, known professionally as Talos, was an Irish musician celebrated for his evocative voice and genre-defying sound. With influences ranging from electronic to orchestral music, Talos built a loyal following through his deeply personal and atmospheric compositions.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: This production may contain Strobe Lighting, Flashing Lights, Smoke and Haze.

AGE GUIDANCE: Under 16’s must be accompanied by and seated next to a parent/guardian aged 18+

*Performance schedule and times are subject to change and may be affected by illness or events beyond the producers’ or venues’ control. Performers, dates, times, prices, and fees are subject to change without notice.

In The Making – Music Production Workshop

Experience digital music production at In the Making’s step-by-step digital music-making workshop! Whether you’re a complete beginner or looking to refine your skills, the Music Production Workshop will guide you through the process of creating and sharing your own unique sound.

Hosted on the Cork Opera House main stage – one of the city’s vital music venues – this hands-on session, delivered by talented music producer Viva Dean, empowers participants to experiment, explore, and unlock their creative potential using insider knowledge and industry-specific technology.

Emphasising the limitless potential for creativity and personal expression digital music-making offers, this event invites you to discover and flex your digital music production skills in an energetic, interactive and encouraging environment.