One of the world's leading performance ensembles for contemporary music, the Arditti String Quartet, are in Dublin this weekend for a series of free workshops and a concert performance. Organised for the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama by lecturer and Irish Times music critic Michael Dervan, the weekend features morning workshops at the Couch House, Dublin Castle, and afternoon screenings at the Irish Film Centre of extraordinary documentaries featuring the Ardittis at work, including, on Sunday, Frank Scheffer's documentary about Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet - in which the players performed simultaneously in four different helicopters.

Topping all that is a free concert in the Couch House on Saturday at 8 p.m. including works written for the quartet by John Cage and Iannis Xenakis, as well as pieces by Anton Webern, Luigi Nono, Philip Glass and Brian Ferneyhough.