Joe Chester – Au Revoir Tristesse – Smock Alley – Live Review
by Killian Laher

Joe Chester must be one of the busiest men in Irish music, playing guitar with A Lazarus Soul, his solo work and previous work with Hedge Schools, Sunbear and Gemma Hayes.  His latest project is a series of pieces for solo classical guitar inspired by Bonjour Tristesse, a novel written by Françoise Sagan.  There are five pieces, bound together under the title Au Revoir Tristesse.  He contacted violin player Steve Wickham and asked him to create some paintings to accompany them.  These paintings were projected on a backdrop during Chester’s performance.

Chester has developed an excellent technique for classical guitar and his playing was at times spellbinding.  The pieces are complex and generally tinged with sadness, and anyone attending couldn’t fail to have been impressed by the performance.  After the performance, there was a brief Q&A with Joe Chester and Steve Wickham, hosted by Niamh Ní Chonchubhair.  They discussed how the project came about, how Chester had read the novel and written the music and then contacted Wickham.  One interesting point was that Steve Wickham didn’t specifically create a painting for each musical piece, bar one (they didn’t divulge which one).

The paintings are being displayed at Axis Ballymun during the First Fortnight festival, which runs till January 18th.