To celebrate the launch of her debut album TOGETHERNESS on Navona Records, Galway soprano Helen Hancock welcomes her pianist Paul Cibis (Germany) back to Ireland for a series of concerts on the theme of love. There will be three dates around Ireland, with Galway's concert taking place in The Hardiman Hotel on Sunday February 1st. Find out more here...
Concert Details:
Saturday 31st Jan at 7.30pm
St Columba’s Church, Binden St, Ennis
Tickets €20/Children €8 (recommended minimum age of 12 years)
Sunday 1st February at 3pm
The Hardiman Hotel Ballroom, Galway.
Tickets €20/Children €8 (recommended minimum age of 12 years)
Thursday 5th February at 7pm
The Goethe-Institut, 37 Merrion Square, Dublin
Tickets €21. Seating in the Goethe-Institut is limited so book early
All Tickets can be purchased via Helen Hancock's Eventbrite HERE.
The programme for this series of concerts includes:
- Frauenliebe und -leben (a woman's love and life): This very famous and moving song cycle explores the ecstasy of early love to engagement and marriage, the birth of children, the pain of loss and the experience of love that continues beyond the grave. Settings by Robert Schumann and Carl Loewe will be interspersed throughout the show, as featured on the album.
- Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques: Stunning folk songs from Greece, by Ravel, will bring sunny places to mind. "If you close your eyes and listen even just to the piano part, it evokes the warmth of the sun on your back and the flowers in the air, you can hear the toll of the bell from the whitewashed church looking out to sea. I have been wanting to perform these songs for ages and I think the cusp of winter into spring is the perfect time to do it", says Hancock.
-Songs by Wagner and Fauré sit side by side with Irish songs by Ina Boyle and Thomas Moore. Haunting song settings of the poetry of Máirtín Ó Direáin by Kerry composer Criostóir Ó Loingsigh also feature.
-Audience favourites from Porgy and Bess and West Side Story also feature as well as an amusing outpouring of frustration from a bridezilla in a Jonathan Dove opera.
Album Artwork for Helen Hancock's new record TOGETHERNESS
Hancock first met Cibis a few years ago when she was in Berlin receiving coaching on an Arts Council Agility Award. "I was introduced to Paul by my coach Gerhard. I knew immediately that his playing was different. There is a musical telepathy that can happen between a singer and a pianist and it is not something you can conjure: it is either there or it is not and when it is, it is special."
Timing was on her side. Not long after that first meeting, Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland Germany invited applications for Zeitgeist Irland 24, a season of Irish Arts in Germany, funded by Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland, Germany. Hancock and Cibis devised a programme called Zweisamkeit (Two Togetherness), showcasing songs from Ireland side by side with German lieder on the theme of love and partnership. It was performed in Würzburg, Germany in June 2024 and included premieres of several pieces by living composers Anne-Marie O’Farrell and Criostóir Ó Loingsigh.
Hancock was one of the lucky recipients of the Basic Income for Artists which subsequently enabled her to fund recording an album in Berlin. "We had a great programme; I had been friends with Ó Loingsigh for many years and it was a wonderful chance to champion his music. As Ó Loingsigh is himself a pianist, it was not insignificant that he gave his blessing for me to record his songs with another pianist. Recording an album is like birthing a baby but making a first recording with the composer present is even more intense. My favourite song on the album is Ó Loingsigh’s setting of the Máirtín Ó Direáin’s poem, Áinlí. In our very final take in that recording studio after three eight-hour days of recording, we decided to really go for it with Áinlí and try a single take. The sound engineer came out of his room at the end and walked over to me to hug me, in tears. I am extremely proud of the work we did in those days in Berlin."
Hancock and Cibis did not stop there, and while Helen was still shopping around for a record deal, they worked up a new programme and performed a short tour in Ireland in March 2025. Having built up that rapport in the recording studio, their musical connection was now even stronger and it was commented on widely by their audiences.
Hancock is hugely excited about the forthcoming concerts; "That special telepathy means you can take risks in performance, you can go further than you have in rehearsals, you can feed off that heightened energy that you only ever get in live performance."
Renowned for her expressive artistry and for the warm atmosphere and rapport she generates with the audience, Helen Hancock has performed in recital, baroque and chamber music concerts in venues and festivals all over Ireland and internationally. Helen has premiered and made first recordings of new music works by Irish composers, including Criostóir Ó Loingsigh, Anne Marie O’Farrell and Christopher Moriarty. In September 2025, Helen performed a lead role in Lady Gregory in America, an opera by Alberto Caruso & Colm Toibín at the annual Gregory - Yeats Autumn Gathering in Gort Co. Galway to great acclaim. This was produced and directed by Lelia Doolan in association with The Abbey Theatre with musical direction by composer Alberto Caruso.
Helen recently formed The Triskel Ensemble with a string quartet of Galway based musicians. Their informal salon style concerts present classical music and opera arias interspersed with lighthearted, more popular classics – and occasionally with audience participation. Their 2025 Christmas concerts in Galway city and county were all sold out and they will perform in Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin in March 2026.
After a run of sold-out Christmas concerts, a recent highlight was a lead role which she sang to great acclaim in the Colm Toibín/Alberto Caruso opera Lady Gregory in America at the Yeats-Gregory Autumn Gathering in September in association with the Abbey Theatre, directed by Lelia Doolan and Alberto Caruso.
Photo of Paul Cibis by Jim Kroft
Starting his career in Germany and the UK, pianist Paul Cibis has performed on five continents, establishing an international presence. Paul is the co-creator of the PIANO BATTLE concert brand with its long-lasting success of over 400 performances worldwide. He has played solo & duo recitals across Europe and Asia, and has been featured on CD recordings in Germany, Ireland, Taiwan and New Zealand. Being equally passionate about education, Paul also gives workshops and masterclasses, mentoring selected talents internationally. He is also a founding member and current chairman of the international Peter Feuchtwanger Society e.V., a non-profit organisation dedicated to education & research on piano technique and pianists' health, and the host of a yearly piano symposium in Germany. Paul has appeared in TV and radio broadcasts around the world, including the BBC, WDR, 3Sat, ORB, HR, RTHK and CCTV.
PIANO BATTLE was born out of the interest to present classical music in a more unique and innovative way. Together with fellow pianist Andreas Kern, he created and developed this project to international acclaim, with their shows being performed at major venues and festivals in Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Canada, the US and Australia, including the Beethovenfest Bonn, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Klavierfestival Ruhr, Rheingau Musik Festival, the Prinzregententheater Munich, Berlin Philharmonie, Melbourne Recital Hall, Seoul Arts Center and the National Concert Hall Taipei.
As a passionate Lieder & Art Song enthusiast, Paul Cibis has performed together with various singers around the globe, among them British baritone Roderick Williams, German soprano Barbara Senator, and in over 100 recitals with the literary chanson singer Eva Meier. His CD recordings include an album of French mélodies and piano works by Berlioz, Fauré and Debussy, with German mezzo-soprano Barbara Senator, and a solo album featuring the Taiwanese composer Kai-nan Huang. 2025 saw the release "Zweisamkeit" / "Togetherness", an album with Irish soprano Helen Hancock, released by Navona Records.
Paul Cibis regularily conducts solo piano and Lieder workshops at universities and academies in the US, Hong Kong (HKAPA), Taiwan, China, South Korea and Singapore (NAFA). For over a decade he was a resident pianist and coach at the Oxford Cello School summer festival and is the co-director of the annual Philomel Music Academy summer course. Paul is also a founding member and current chairman of the international Peter Feuchtwanger Society. Paul was involved in various film projects. He penned the music scores for several short films, and was the initiator as well as music supervisor of the international award-winning documentary PIANOMANIA. Paul Cibis studied piano with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling (HMTM Hanover), Peter Feuchtwanger (London), Eugene Asti and Graham Johnson (GSMD). Furthermore he read musicology and philosophy in Berlin and at the Royal Holloway, University of London. From 2005 to 2009, Paul taught at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance.
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