ArtScape: The latest figures from the Joint National Listenership Research survey have brought little joy to RTÉ's Limerick-based music and arts radio channel, Lyric FM, writes Michael Dervan.
The press release from RTÉ put a good face on the news by stating, "Lyric FM continues to offer choice in a crowded evening market, maintaining a 4 per cent share and reaching 280,000 classical music fans weekly". But the overall national share held by Lyric - PPI National Radio Station of the Year in 2002 - has dropped from 2 per cent to 1 per cent, and its "reach" (listened yesterday) figure has dropped, from 4 per cent to 3 per cent.
The impact on individual strands has been more dramatic, with Lyric's most popular programmes suffering serious losses. Into the Evening shed 19,000 listeners (42 per cent of its audience), The Full Score is down 27 per cent, Lyric Lunchtime Choice fell 22 per cent, the 10 a.m. Lyric Notes is down 40 per cent, and The Lyric Breakfast has lost 37 per cent of its listeners.
Two of Lyric's strands have, however, bucked the trend and recorded increases. The 10.30 p.m. Blue of the Night clocked up 46 per cent more listeners than in the period of the previous survey. Although its audience is smaller than most of the daytime shows (due to lower overall radio listenership at night), the poor daytime results have seen it pass out, in absolute terms, the listenerships for Lyric Breakfast, Lyric Notes, and even the 8 p.m. Lyric Concert.
The highly varied 7 p.m.-8 p.m. strand is also up, by 8 per cent.
Lyric's current performance compares unfavourably with that of BBC Radio 3 which, with an altogether more specialised schedule, has a 1.1 per cent listenership share in Britain and a 4 per cent weekly reach.
Classic FM, the commercial British station on which Lyric FM is closely modelled, has a 4.5 per cent share and a 14 per cent reach.
Ironically, the current head of Lyric FM, Aodán Ó Dubhghaill, has been in the post only since the end of May. So it's just the last month covered in the JNLR annual statistics which falls within his watch.
The previous station head, Séamus Crimmins, has since April been on secondment from RTÉ to the Arts Council, where he is director of policy.
Ó Dubhghaill has already made changes at Lyric. He has reassigned producers and has been working on further alterations, "tweaking the schedule," he says, "rather than anything major".
Cork goes Nordic
Fans of the ECM sound - in particular Jan Garbarek's distinct tenor sax - are in for a treat at this year's Guinness Cork Jazz Festival where he and another leading exponent of the label's wistful brand of jazz, Charles Lloyd, will be among the headline acts.
Garbarek, whose last appearance in Ireland was not a jazz event but as accompaniment to the vocal music of the Hilliard Ensemble in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, will not only be bringing his regular group (Marilyn Mazur on percussion; Rainer Bruninghaus on keyboards and Eberhard Weber, double bass) but also a stage set and lighting flown in from Oslo for what is being promised as a concert with a Nordic sailing theme that will feature Garbarek's music from the past 20 years as well as new material.
This event will open the 26th festival in Cork on October 24th at the Everyman Palace Theatre.
As well as the Garbarek group and the Charles Lloyd Quartet, another ECM act, the Carla Bley Quartet is heading to Cork for the bank holiday jazz weekend.
Other major groups booked so far include Pharoah Sanders Quartet, The Bad Plus - a quick return after a recent Irish tour - Jimmy Cobb & New York Nights, Pat Martino, Danilo Perez Trio, Greg Osby with Charlie Hunter and Bobby Previte, Charles Gayle, Jean-Michel Pilc Trio, Viktoria Tolstoy, Olga Konkova Trio and Abdullah Ibrahim.
Tickets for Garbarek, at €30 each, will go on sale on September 1st from the Everyman Box Office, tel: 021 450 1673. More information from www.corkjazzfestival.com
Northern lights
Belfast City Council has published a new Culture and Arts Plan 2003-2006, writes Jane Coyle. Entitled The Spirit of the City, it is the result of what the council claims to have been one of the widest cultural consultation exercises ever undertaken by a local council. It outlines two key objectives for the next three years - the development of cultural product in Belfast and the regeneration of the city, using culture and arts as a tool.
Sinn Féin Councillor Eoin Ó Broin, who chairs the Development (Arts) Sub-Committee, calls the document ". . . a workplan for the next three years - not a strategy, not an aspiration. One of the reasons given for Belfast not being shortlisted for European Capital of Culture 2008 was its lack of cultural infrastructure.
"There has been a chronic lack of investment in the arts in Belfast over decades and the council must take its share of responsibility for that situation".
The plan comes in the wake of the disappointing Capital of Culture bid and the anger of many in the city's arts community over last year's council decision to slice 20 per cent off their grants in order to fund a development and outreach programme. While Ó Broin supports those decisions, he admits their implementation was badly handled.
"The last 12 months have been a disaster for the council. In launching this new plan, we are starting from a low point, but from now on we will be concentrating much more on communication and consultation. It doesn't mean we will always have consensus, but we will be talking on a regular basis to everyone concerned.
"The plan will shift culture to a more central position on the urban regeneration agenda and we will be holding call-back meetings every six months to announce what we have done - or not done. In that way, we aim to ensure a greater degree of public accountability and transparency." Paula McFetridge, artistic director of the Lyric Theatre, welcomes Ó Broin's appointment as chairman of the sub-committee, while agreeing ". . . we won't always see eye to eye. There will undoubtedly be blood on the table. But he has already shown himself willing to listen and learn. It is important that we educate the politicians and the funders. They must be made to realise how hard it is for arts organisations to consider a plan like this, which looks three years down the road, when we do not have multiple funding. We should be concentrating on improving our ongoing operation, instead of initiating projects to fit in with a succession of plans."
Some within the Northern arts community have dismissed the plan as little more than expensively produced hot air, while others have given it a guarded welcome as a potential springboard for change.
Looking for looted art
The German government has established a new commission to look into the controversial issue of Nazi-looted art, writes Derek Scally in Berlin. Six decades after the second World War, there are an estimated 46,000 works of art around the world with disputed ownership arising from Nazi looting of Jewish homes and galleries. The German government says the commission will "increase the chances of finding a fair and correct solution" to ownership disputes. But critics say the commission's chances of success are low as it can only intervene in a dispute with the agreement of both parties claiming ownership. Establishing ownership is often a complicated matter, particularly if a piece has landed in a museum collection after changing hands several times in the intervening years. Looted art is uncovered regularly in Germany: in 1999 a Berlin gallery returned to the family of a Jewish collector works by Van Gogh and Hans von Marées. A year later, a Leipzig gallery handed back several pieces to the descendants of another German Jewish family now living in the US. Germany's culture minister, Christina Weiss, has urged museums to check their collections again for art of questionable origin. The eight-member commission is headed by the former German chief justice Jutta Limbach, now head of the Goethe Institute. Other members include the former German president, Richard von Weizsäcker. A government-sponsored website that allows people to register missing art has had more than 10 million visits since it was launched two years ago. Its address is www.lostart.de
Changing focus
The Irish Film and Television Association (ifta) is gradually winding up its operations and changing focus: following chief executive Fionnuala Sweeney's move to the Arts Council, ifta is closing its office and concentrating on a biennial industry-focused awards ceremony; the next awards will be in January, and ifta plans to appoint an organiser and committee in a year's time. Members have been advised to cancel subscription payments. Chairman Ian S. Kennedy is now looking after ifta matters directly. E-mail: ians.kennedy@byopenworld.com
And furthermore . . .
Since he took up his post as director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art at the beginning of the year, Enrique Juncosa has enjoyed an exceptionally warm response from the Irish art world, writes Aidan Dunne. A former deputy director of Spain's National Museum of Modern Art Reina Sofie, Juncosa, on his appointment to IMMA, readily admitted his knowledge of contemporary Irish art was limited. But since his arrival here he has made his presence felt, frequently attending exhibition openings and other events.
He has evidently been sufficiently encouraged by what he has seen to respond positively to an invitation from Spain's major annual international art fair, ARCO, to curate a substantial exhibition of work by young Irish artists. He has, he says, "discovered quite a large number of interesting and original artists" here. The exhibition could be a significant showcase for contemporary Irish art. ARCO, which takes place in Madrid next February, typically attracts over 100,000 visitors.
The only potential drawback for Juncosa is the event may mark the end of his honeymoon period at IMMA, since it involves him nailing his colours to the mast in terms of including and, more to the point, excluding artists . . . The Arts Council has reminded those hoping to receive funding in 2004 that applications must be received between September 1st and October 10th, 2003. The council's preference is for online applications. An application form must be used and new customised forms have been developed for different kinds of organisations and for new applicants. Online applicants will receive a password to avail of this.
To request an application form, or for more information about the process, contact: The Arts Programme Department, The Arts Council, 70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2; rgu@artscouncil.ie; tel: Kevin Healy at 01-6180275, 01-6180254, 01-6180260.