ArtScape:Forget about that big day out next Thursday. As far as Galway's arts community is concerned, the future starts on Monday, when the first attempt is made to initiate "peace negotiations" between various groupings, writes Lorna Siggins.
The "George Mitchell" role will be played by Galway City Council director of services Tom Hernon, who has invited representatives of the Galway Arts Festival (GAF), Macnas and the Project 06 grouping to a meeting on Monday evening. It is understood that Hernon will touch base with representatives of each of the groups separately during the course of the afternoon.
The initiative arose as a result of discussions at Galway City Council level last Monday, when elected representatives were informed that city manager Joe McGrath intended to give the GAF an extra €85,000 euro for this year's event. This should assist the festival and Macnas in their joint bid to stage the annual parade, which had been dropped from the programme due to lack of finances.
The festival had sought an extra €160,000 from the council, as the drinks multinational Diageo has terminated its sponsorship, worth about €1 million over the past five years. The local authority's annual contribution represents about 2 per cent of the festival's €2.5 million budget.
During the debate at city council, a number of councillors expressed concern about the friction between the GAF and last year's alternative one-off festival, Project 06, and several said that additional monies to the GAF should be contingent on dialogue.
The councillors supported a proposal by Labour's Billy Cameron that a forum be established. Such a forum would examine how best to promote and reflect the input of local artists to GAF, it was agreed, and the local authority says it intends to put this in train as a "long-term objective".
It was also agreed that an initial meeting should be set up, chaired by Hernon, who secured a mutually suitable date from all three parties before the proverbial ink was dry.
Cork music school makes noise
The potential ripple effect of the new Cork School of Music (CSM) is indicated even in its architecture, given the vertiginous nature of the structure on the banks of the river Lee, writes Mary Leland. The split-level top-storey library is walled with glass and perched directly over the river, while the twin light-wells piercing the school from ground to rooftop create an almost hallucinatory impact of dizzying height and shine. Taking the building as a metaphor for the ambitions of the school, Micheál Martin, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, said last week that it would be an iconic symbol of change and regeneration in Cork and throughout the country.
As minister for education, Martin had sanctioned the building and was now witnessing the signing of the contract between Apple Computers and Hochtief PPP Solutions of Germany, who (in partnership with Barclays Private Equity) are principals with the Department of Education in this flagship public-private partnership agreement, the first of its kind in Ireland. It has been a long time coming, and the new contract signals the end of a six-year saga of difficulties, street protests and dislocation following the closure of the old school on the same site.
CSM director Geoffrey Spratt was almost breathless with relief as he thanked the Minister for his continuing support through several ministries and his own staff for their heroic endurance of working through 12 different teaching and performing venues in the interim. Designed by Murray O'Laoire Architects and built by Sisk, the school will cater for 400 full-time and more than 2,000 part-time students when it opens in September. Already piano technician Chris Teroni is moving from London to manage the fleet of 52 Steinways - the largest of any educational establishment in the country. As the country's largest provider of education in music and drama, the school's 25-year maintenance and management contract, valued at €210 million, included design, build and fit-out costs of €62 million; the catalogue of accommodation, covering 13,000sq m, includes a 500-seat auditorium, as well as a smaller theatre, lecture room, conference room, rehearsal rooms, a cafe, a recording studio and suites of piano, audio and music laboratories.
And even as flautist Patricia Goggin gave the first musical performance in the new building with Debussy's Syrinx, it was revealed that within this contemporary abundance previous directors John C Murphy and the late Bridget Doolin and Bernard Curtis, along with James Stack of theatre studies, are remembered in specific venues, while the sculptured tablets commissioned from Seamus Murphy for the former building are restored to the new.
Politics of culture
What occasion could bring Ronan and Yvonne Keating, Nicky Byrne from Westlife, pianist John O'Conor, actor Alan Stanford, former European Commissioner David Byrne and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern together at the same city-centre location, asks Deaglán de Bréadún, Political Correspondent. Along with several hundred others, they assembled at the Dancehouse in Dublin's Foley Street this week to hear Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue launch Fianna Fáil's arts manifesto.
It was a hot summer's day but a jazz trio led by Patrice Brun kept the guests cool as they waited for the Taoiseach to arrive. Most people were in place by 12.30pm but it was 40 minutes later when Bertie turned up. Even though it was his own Dublin Central constituency, he let the Minister do most of the talking.
There aren't many votes in the arts but if O'Donoghue wished he was knocking on doors in Kerry South where his local rivals include the legendary Jackie Healy-Rae, he didn't show it. In his speech he said, "If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced that the world would be a better place."
His core message was that the Government was providing "more than €216 million" for arts and cultural projects in Ireland in 2007 and a further €1.13 billion was incorporated in the National Development Plan 2007-2013.
Arts and culture were "at the heart" of Fianna Fáil's plans for the future and the arts manifesto promises new tax incentives to make cultural philanthropy more attractive, and a combined Cultural Visa and Work Permit to facilitate artists and groups who want to come and work in Ireland.
Paying artistic homage to the 1916 leaders is a project close to the Minister's heart and his rhetoric went up a flight or two as he explained, "The swell of time between then and now should not be allowed to dim that glowing memory". The 100th anniversary of the Rising is only nine years away and, if re-elected to government, Fianna Fáil will move ahead with projects to mark the centenary, including the conversion of the GPO into a museum.
Finishing with a rhetorical flourish, he said, "When the dust of time settles on our towns, cities and civilisation, historians will record that we were the party of cultural vision with the insight to invest in all that truly differentiated and celebrated us as a distinct people." Follow that, Jackie Healy-Rae.
- Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Paul Muldoon is to tour Ireland with his rock band Rackett - the first time it has toured in Europe. "I'm delighted to be going on the road with Rackett, the rock band for which I've been writing lyrics over the last couple of years," said Muldoon, who also plays guitar and percussion. "I may read a poem or two along the way, but the focus for this tour is firmly on the music. A while back I described that music as a crossing of Cole Porter with progressive rock and punk, Ira Gershwin with glam and grunge. We can promise anyone who comes to hear us smart lyrics and smouldering licks."
The poet has had a long involvement with music, from writing opera libretti to collaborating with the Handsome Family and appearing in Spinal Tap Goes to 20; in 2003 Muldoon received a Concert Music Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
The Arts Council has given €10,000 towards the tour for which The Irish Times has come on board as a media partner. Triskel Arts Centre artistic director Tony Sheehan, who's been organising the tour, says, "People are totally intrigued by the fact that an internationally renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning author heads up a garage rock band". Rackett is at Triskel in Cork on Aug 26th, before going to Listowel, Galway, Sligo, Navan, Belfast and Dublin.
- The Abbey is re-establishing its Lennox Robinson Bursary - a €7,000 annual award. It is open to Irish or Irish-based theatre artists and practitioners. Application forms will be on www.abbeytheatre.ie from Monday.