THE Ulster Orchestra has announced the appointment of a new principal conductor and artistic advisor, writes Michael Dervan. Dmitri Sitkovetsky, who will take up his position next September, is best known as a violinist (he stood in at Kilkenny Arts Week 1994 for an indisposed Midori) and has become increasingly active as a conductor over the last five years or so, after he founded his own orchestra, New European Strings. He has recorded widely as a soloist (including the Beethoven concerto with Neville Marriner and the Elgar with Yehudi Menuhin), and as a conductor he has recorded his own transcription for string orchestra of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Sitkovetsky has described the UO appointment as marking "an important new chapter in my musical life".

The Cork violinist Catherine Leonard, who's currently based in Salzburg, where she studies with Ruggiero Ricci, has scored another international competition success, taking third prize at Scheveningen in the Netherlands. She plans to add her prize money to a fund for a new instrument.

The young Dublin conductor Fergus Sheil, who took top prize at the British Reserve Insurance competition in Bristol last year made his professional concert debut last weekend with the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra in Durham. The Durham engagement was a direct outcome of the competition win - he was spotted in Bristol by a talent scout from the Northern Sinfonia. On his return he went straight into rehearsal with DGOS Opera Ireland, with whom he is working as chorus master for next month's season of Tosca and Magic Flute. His professional concert debut in Dublin is currently scheduled for August, when he is to give an NCH lunchtime concert with the RTECO.