THE ORIGINAL HOOKED ON CLASSICS
With Louis Clark and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra
The Mahony Hall, The Helix
Saturday, 28 September

7 October 2002

RTÉ Concert Orchestra directed by Louis Clark in The Mahony Hall, The Helix.

The city is built
To music, therefore never built at all,
And therefore built for ever.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1872)

Saturday, 28 September marked another major development in the life of DCU. With immense satisfaction and perhaps a little surprise, the community, friends and neighbours of DCU saw the Helix emerge as a venue of real substance, a ventricle of vitality in the community and cultural life of the university and its hinterland. The welcoming words of the President of the University, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski were followed by an acoustic check that sounded like aliens from space also wanted to add their welcome. Then the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under conductor Louis Clark - resplendent in white tails - unleashed a medley of melodies from the Hooked on Classics ensemble. The acoustic excellence of the Mahony Hall immediately became apparent. Hooked on Classics has been on the (middle of the) road for several decades now and the programme included several pieces familiar to - and easy on - the ear, including Can't Stop the Classics, If you knew Sousa, Hooked on Drinking and Hooked on Ireland. The evening finished with the Can-Can where the audience danced not in the aisles but in the rows and (most obviously) the balcony and laid the lie that those who can can and those can't . . . .

related links
The Helix website