ArtScapeLast weekend the music of Arvo Pärt brought the RTÉ Living Music Festival to a new level of popular success, writes Michael Dervan.
Attendances at the festival amounted to more than 3,500. All six concerts sold out in advance, the first time the festival achieved this. And the shy, beatific presence of the composer himself at most of the events seemed to leave many listeners with large lumps in their throats, above and beyond those provided by the music.
Speaking after the festival, Pärt described the weekend as "the best festival of my life," and Séamus Crimmins, executive director of RTÉ's performing groups, commented that "Those present for the RTÉ Living Music Festival will never forget his warmth, humanity, charm and sincerity." The only major note of disappointment surrounding the festival attached to the fact that RTÉ broke from its tradition and refused to disclose any details of next year's programme.
And to be fair, it's going to be difficult to find another subject to replicate the high of this year's event. It will be interesting, with Crimmins less than a year in his post, to see if he will take on the challenge so assiduously avoided by his predecessor Niall Doyle, that of integrating the music of our time that has proved successful at the Living Music Festivals into the core subscription season of RTÉ's biggest musical asset, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.
There's no such information vacuum at the Louth Contemporary Music Society, which ran sold-out Pärt concerts in Drogheda and Dundalk in the run-up to the RTÉ Festival, and trumped the national broadcaster by commissioning a new choral work from Pärt, The Deer's Cry, which was heard in both towns in performances by the Latvian State Choir, Latvija. LCMS have commissioned a work from John Tavener, which is currently scheduled for performance on October 24th and 25th.
The Ireland/Pärt connection is not expected to lapse with the end of the Living Music Festival. Pärt was very taken by some of the performances he heard here, notably from the violin and piano duo of Ioana Petcu-Colan and Michael McHale, and the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet. Nothing has been firmed up yet, but watch this space.
Friends face off for Olivier Award
It's the season of awards for performances on stage and screen. Intriguingly, two lifelong friends from Ballycastle in Co Antrim have been nominated in the same category for this year's prestigious London-based Laurence Olivier Awards, writes Jane Coyle. Conleth Hill and Michelle Fairley go head to head in the nominations for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.
Hill is recognised for what Michael Billington in the Guardiancalled his "acerbically funny" portrayal of the house philosopher Teterev in Andrew Upton's new translation of Gorky's Philistines, directed by Howard Davies on the National Theatre's Lyttleton stage.
Fairley is rewarded for her performance, alongside Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor, in Michael Grandage's Othelloat the Donmar Warehouse. The Independentnewspaper described her Emilia as "fierce and indignant".
Cork actor Fiona Shaw receives a nomination for Best Actress for her "brilliantly naturalistic" ( Guardian) performance as Winnie in Beckett's Happy Daysat the Lyttleton, directed by her long-time collaborator Deborah Warner.
As teenagers, Hill and Fairley cut their acting teeth in Belfast with the Ulster Youth Theatre and the innovative Fringe Benefits Theatre Company under artistic director David Grant.
If Hill is successful, this will be his third Olivier Award, having previously won for Stones in his Pocketsand The Producers, a remarkable achievement for this modest actor, who describes himself simply as "a boy from Ballycastle". The awards will be presented in London on March 9th.
Venice meets Farmleigh
So you didn't make to it Venice last year for the art biennale, and you hear the Irish pavilions were very impressive, showing work by Dublin artist Gerard Byrne, who represented Ireland, and Turner-nominated Derry artist Willie Doherty, who represented Northern Ireland. But not to worry, because the two exhibits, both of them film installations, are being reassembled in Dublin at the Farmleigh Gallery, offering the public in Ireland the chance to see how we were represented at the 52nd Venice Biennale - for the first time the Republic's and Northern Ireland's selected artists were shown together, which added to the impact in Venice. The OPW hosts the exhibition, Venice at Farmleigh, from Thursday March 6th to Sunday May 4th, before it goes to Belfast in May.
Byrne's *ZAN-*T185. is based on microfilm records of early issues of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine held in the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center - the work is a meditation on fame, artifice, acting and complicity between interviewee and interviewer. Commissioned by Culture Ireland with Venice Biennale commissioner Mike Fitzpatrick, it was shot on location at the New York Theatre Workshop with cinematographer Chris Doyle, and produced by Ali Curran. Also included in the exhibition is the film installation Hommes à Femme (Michel Debrane).
Doherty's video work, Ghost Story, was commissioned with Northern Ireland Venice Biennale commissioner Hugh Mulholland. A narrator pieces together images from disparate memories, dreams and premonitions, trying unsuccessfully to order them and understand them. Shot and produced in the North, it brings together a crew including cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, with a voiceover from Stephen Rea.
Culture Ireland chairman Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin is "proud to be part of a pioneering partnership of cultural agencies on both parts of the island presenting Ireland's visual arts to a global public" - while Ireland's participation in the Biennale was funded by Culture Ireland and the Arts Council, Northern Ireland was funded by the British Council and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. At Farmleigh, the exhibition runs Thurs-Sun, see www.farmleigh.ie
•Museums and arts centres with a local dimension can enhance the tourist potential of the area, though this dynamic relationship between museums, arts and heritage venues and their local community is something that can challenge even the smallest venue.
With this in mind, the Irish Museums Association Annual Conference (Wexford: February 29th - March 2nd) is titled "New Approaches to the Museum's Engagement with the Local Community". Speakers at the conference, which will be launched by Brendan Howlin TD, include Sir Neil Cossons, chairman of English Heritage; Dr Colin Rynne, University College Cork; Roy Hoibo, Ryfylke Museums Norway; Dr Séamas Mac Philip, National Museum of Country Life Castlebar; Stephen Harrison, Manx Museum & National Heritage Service; Sue Latimer, Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery Glasgow; and Sharon Quinn, Wexford Agricultural Museum.
The conference promises to show how with research, imagination and persistence, every museum and arts centre can develop a significant local community presence. For details, e-mail IMA@ngi.ie, call 01-6633579 or see www.irishmuseums.org.
•Na Píobairí Uilleann embarks on its 40th year with Piper's Choice, a DVD recording of three of the finest living uilleann pipers, writes Siobhán Long. Since unveiling its newly renovated Georgian premises in Henrietta Street last year, Na Píobairí Uilleann has busied itself with key piping publications and recordings, as well as spearheading a major piping tour last autumn.
This DVD, featuring Liam O'Flynn, Tommy Keane and Ronan Browne, may go some way towards demystifying the complexities of piping, with each piper offering an insight into the creative process that drives their relationship with what is in some ways an iconic instrument in traditional music. It may also lure potential local and international students of piping to enrol in NPU's online piping lessons. For those more interested in the craft of pipe-making, NPU are collaborating with Fás to develop a dedicated course, further news on which can be found at www.pipers.ie
•The 2008 Darklight Festival - exploring the convergence of art, film, and technology - is on June 26th-29th and is calling for entries (see www.darklight.ie). Darklight has an open submission policy, and feature films, documentaries, music videos, animations, experimental video, commercial work, motion graphics, game sequences, live-action shorts and student productions are eligible for entry by March 14th.