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Something for the Weekend: Finghin Collins's cultural picks

A former child prodigy, Finghin Collins launched his international career by winning first prize at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland at the age of 22 in 1999. Since then, he has become one of Ireland's most celebrated musicians and performed extensively across Europe, the US, the Far East, and Australia, both as a soloist and chamber musician, and with many of the world's leading orchestras. Finghin is the Artistic Director of the prestigious Dublin International Piano Competition (DIPC), which returns to Dublin this May and will see 23 pianists from 12 countries compete in what is considered one of the world's leading piano competitions. We asked Finghin for his choice cultural picks... FILM The last film I saw was Maria, the Maria Callas biopic with Angelina Jolie. It's great to see how many mainstream movies have been released recently about classical music – I'm thinking of Tár (2022) and Maestro (2023) in particular. While it's easy to pick holes in movies of this genre which are so anchored in reality and which require actors to sing/conduct/perform as if they were world-class musicians, I did find Maria very moving in its depiction of Callas' final weeks. MUSIC Music is my life so to recommend a piece of music is very difficult. I am regularly asked who is my favourite composer and it changes weekly depending on what repertoire I am performing! Having said that, there are some constants in my life and I think Mozart and Schubert are very much in the top drawer of my life's loves. I have performed many Schubert songs with different singers this year and it always brings special joy. In particular, I performed one of Schubert's most demanding songs Erlkönig for the first time in February – a great challenge but hugely rewarding. BOOK At the moment, I am just finishing The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, an entertaining and stimulating exploration of Irish society and family relations. The book that affected me most last year was Paul Lynch's Prophet Song – very chilling. THEATRE I went to see Emma at the Abbey at Christmas time. My friend and I had seats in the second row, within spitting distance of the actors. I have rarely laughed so much - it was irreverent but not disrespectful to Jane Austen's novel. The actors were amazing - I don't know how they have the energy to perform the show over and over again, and sometimes twice in one day. TV I don't really watch television apart from the odd news bulletin. For my guilty pleasures, I do look up old episodes of Are You Being Served? on YouTube! GIG I perform regularly in Switzerland and am off there again in late May for a performance with a French wind quintet. Back in Ireland, I'll be at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festival, performing in Killruddery on June 8th – always a very special place to perform. The last concert I attended was Nathalia Milstein, the 2015 winner of the Dublin International Piano Competition, who performed Brahms' monumental Second Piano Concerto with an orchestra in the Netherlands. It's great to see her career going from strength to strength. ART One of my favourite artists is the Dublin batik artist Bernadette Madden. Her work is individual, classy and very rooted in the local landscape/cityscape. Bernadette is also a personal friend, so perhaps I'm biased! Her imagery has been associated with the Dublin International Piano Competition for many years and since I became Artistic Director of the Competition, I have sought to strengthen the connection. I love listening to radio as you can do other things at the same time (drive a car, do the ironing, cook the dinner – not, sadly, practice the piano!). Current affairs programmes remain my staple, I am constantly fascinated by the editorial choices that must be made on a daily basis – which topics to cover/how to cover them fairly/how to interview somebody firmly but politely (if there are saying things that seem outrageous to you, but perhaps not to others) and so on. I think in another life I would have liked to present a current affairs radio programme but I may not always be able to keep my cool! TECH I'm actually trying to reduce my use of Apps and have deactivated my social media accounts in recent months. It's a great relief - and really I am convinced that social media does not play an overwhelmingly positive role in society. I do try to keep my website updated because that remains an important source of information. THE NEXT BIG THING... Everyone says Artificial Intelligence is the next big thing – but really I think genuine human intelligence is so much more attractive and I'll be sticking with this for the foreseeable future.