Art Scape edited by Deirdre FalveyTaking an orchestra to Germany evokes memories of coals and Newcastle, writes Derek Scally.
But on Tuesday the Irish Chamber Orchestra (ICO), under the direction of Anthony Marwood, fired up their audience on an icy Berlin evening. Their programme of Haydn, Mozart, Kinsella and Latvian composer Péteris Vasks, already enjoyed by a National Concert Hall audience last week, made an ecstatic impression on the audience at Berlin's historic Konzerthaus.
This is no small order in a country where many consider attendance at classical concerts a social responsibility, like paying taxes: something to be done rigidly but without any outward sign of enjoyment. Nowhere is this phenomenon of obligation over pleasure more prevalent than in the German capital, home to possibly the world's greatest orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic.
That made it all the more enjoyable to see Marwood, clarinettist Jörg Widmann and the ICO knock the starch out of the crowd on Tuesday night. "They were already enthusiastic after the Haydn, which I wasn't expecting," said Marwood afterwards. "I think we really hit the target with the Vasks."
The Latvian composer's gripping, searing 1997 violin concerto, Distant Light, was the highlight of the evening, leaving the audience moved, disturbed and utterly impressed. An American psychoanalyst in the audience, taking copious notes, remarked: "It's extraordinary the range Vasks and the orchestra is taking us through here."
Amid shouts of "bravo" and "wunderbar", a clearly moved Vasks leapt onto the stage to embrace Marwood. "Anthony is simply incredible, he gives 150 per cent, and the orchestra play so well, they are simply superb," said a tearful Vasks afterward.
With the help of a new German promoter, the orchestra hopes to return here after next year's US tour. After all, to crack Germany is to have arrived in the classical music world. To allow the orchestra play the entire chamber repertoire, though, it is hoping for additional government funding to increase the number of musicians on contract from 24 at present to 35.
"We want to be the Berlin Philharmonic of chamber orchestras," said ICO chief executive John Kelly. "But, compared with Scotland or Finland, countries of similar population, we are completely underfunded."
When Vasks heard that the ICO receives just €1.2 million from the State, he was incensed. "What stupidity! €1 million is nothing for a government," he said. "The orchestra deserves €100 million."
A palette for the palate
When Aoibheann McNamara began to exhibit contemporary art in her award-winning restaurant, Ard Bia on Quay Street in Galway, there was little indication that it was a first step on a journey that would see her open a cutting-edge gallery of contemporary art in the city, writes Aidan Dunne. But the Ard Bia gallery on
William Street West has quickly established itself as a premier innovative arts venue with high curatorial and installation standards. Particularly noticeable are the contacts McNamara developed with Icelandic artists, including the group the Icelandic Love Corporation.
Ard Bia's restaurant empire has continued to expand, adding Nimmo's at Spanish Arch and the Ard Bia supper club to the mix. Now McNamara is embarking on another bold initiative with the launch of Ard Bia Berlin towards the end of November, in what is believed to be the first such venture on the part of an Irish gallery. Located in the Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin, the project will incorporate an exhibition space, studios and a residency programme. Rosie Lynch, late of the William Street West branch of the gallery, is now based in Berlin, co-ordinating the venture and co-curating its programme with McNamara.
Maintaining those Icelandic links, the first show will feature the Icelandic Love Corporation artists exhibiting this time as individuals - Eirun, Sigrun and Joni. It's characteristic of McNamara that she sees things in terms of a broad cultural context, hence her aim to establish Ard Bia Berlin as "a meeting point, 'drop-in centre', networking facility, project station and a transition space for artists and cultural makers engaging with the city".
In choosing Berlin she is acknowledging that the city has become a vibrant centre of arts activity, not least because the relatively low rents there, together with the available facilities, make it attractive for artists not just from Germany but internationally. As a result there is a huge range of talent concentrated in the once-divided city and, as McNamara points out, such is its appeal that several of the world's leading contemporary art collectors are planning to install their collections there permanently.
Let's hear it for elitism
"With the new prosperity of the western world, there has been a tendency in western Europe and the US to claim that everyone is an artist . . . Previous generations gave respect to their artists as the elite who pointed to the stars when even the artists themselves may have been languishing in the gutter. And their work helped the rest of us to raise our eyes at least as far as the rooftops.
"But now the improvement in educational provision and what has come to be called 'lifelong learning' has created an arrogance of achievement. The work produced in a senior citizens' painting group is so lauded that nobody sees the necessity of looking at the work in the National Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, or the better commercial galleries. The amateur drama group plays to a rapturous audience of friends and relations, and those on both sides of the curtain feel that their cultural requirements have been met. It's easy, it's enjoyable, it makes no demands, and it is sociologically valuable. But it is not art; indeed it discourages those participating from exploring the world of art. It ends up making art a branch of the social services."
It's not often people defend elitism, and there's plenty of food for thought, and for argument, in The Case for Elitism by journalist (and former Arts Council member) Emer O'Kelly. Her stimulating essay, one of two pamphlets published this week by the Arts Council, says the council has "a duty to elitism. This does not mean that it excludes people by its support for only the very best there is. It must trumpet and herald the best so loudly, and push it into the public consciousness so vehemently that the appetite for the best is whetted and the imaginative parameters are burst wide open."
The Value of the Arts pamphlets are in an Arts Council series published at intervals this year and are available online at www.artscouncil.ie/en/FAQ/ value_of_the_arts.aspx as well as in paper format. This week's second pamplet is by poet John McAuliffe, who writes in The Siren Alps that, "The individual and the community are central to the arts, but the reverse is also true: the arts change lives and have the power to change a community's idea about itself. People of all ages see them as part of their daily or weekly life, and for many others they act as a resource or an escape at particular moments in their lives."
The prompt for the pamphlet campaign was the publication of a study, The Public and the Arts, last December, which shows contradictory findings: people consider the arts to be important, even if they do not personally attend formal arts events.
The Flip Flop team at the Pavilion in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, who've been busy all week with their first international children's theatre festival, believe the Children's Fiction Slam at the theatre last Sunday night may well have been the world's first such event. A total of 11 unpublished (in English; a couple had published in Irish or French) writers of children's fiction read from their work, some performatively, for an audience of peers and supporters. Festival co-ordinator Valerie Bistany thought it might be hard to persuade people to show off their work, but she had a great response and found writers were happy to read their work. Feedback and support came from the audience and the two judges, award-winning children's writers Conor Kostick and Siobhan Parkinson, who also chose the winner, Bebhinn O Meadhra. She read an extract from Run For It!, her book aimed at 9- to 12-year-olds. O Meadhra, who teaches art at Art Scoil La Salle, Raheny, had a book published in Irish by An Gúm 20 years ago.