Martyn Westerman has resigned as executive director of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, with effect from the end of September, reports Michael Dervan.
Because of accumulated leave, his departure will actually become effective sooner, and his management role will be filled in the short term by Brian O'Rourke, personnel executive of the RTÉ Performing Groups.
Westerman took up his post with the RTÉ NSO in 1999 and his years with RTÉ have seen a more determined approach to thematic programme planning, including two special weekends drawing in the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet. One of these was devoted to the music of the Second Viennese School, the other to American Originals. He also oversaw a transition of principal conductors, from Alexander Anissimov to Gerhard Markson, and brought in William Eddins as principal guest conductor.
His management style was known to be abrasive at times, and in September, 2000, his handling of a dispute over broadcasting rights at the Wexford Festival (which at that time employed the RTÉ NSO) drew the festival, RTÉ and the BBC into unseemly conflict. The rift between RTÉ and the festival became so great that the RTÉ NSO disappeared from the pit at Wexford, and both the orchestra, and RTÉ's hefty subvention of its involvement in Wexford, were passed over and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus hired instead. Wexford and RTÉ have never formally confirmed that the rift is permanent, but the smart money at the moment is not on a mending of broken bridges.
Relations between Westerman and RTÉ's director of music, Niall Doyle, are believed to have been at best cool, and Doyle's formal farewell was barely lukewarm. "I would like to acknowledge the contribution which Martyn has made to the development of the RTÉ NSO during his four years with the orchestra," he said. "And I wish him the very best for the future."
Westerman, who described his time in RTÉ as "four successful and challenging years", said that, "for various reasons I have decided it is an optimum time to move on and I wish the orchestra and all of my colleagues continued success in the future".
Gerhard Markson is about to start the final year of his current contract, and, to date, RTÉ has made no announcement about his successor. The likelihood in the current circumstances is that the conductor's contract will be renewed. Westerman's post, says Doyle, "will be publicly advertised in the near future".
Crean show conquers NY
Ice Crean Tom Crean - Antarctic Explorer, Aiden Dooley's one-man show about the intrepid Irishman who served with Scott and Shackleton on three famous expeditions in the early years of the last century, is just back from New York, where it won rave reviews and the FringeNYC 2003 Best Solo Performance Award. The New York Times called it "a ripping good yarn". Crean's 36-mile solitary trek to base camp during the Terra Nova expedition to rescue two comrades has been described by Antarctic historians as "the finest feat of individual heroism from the entire age of exploration". Crean (1877-1938) was awarded the Albert Medal for his bravery, and his name has lived on through Mount Crean and the Crean Glacier on the Antarctic Continent. Actor/writer/director Dooley has performed his show in Tralee, Galway and Athy, and it opens next Tuesday for a three-week run at Dublin's New Theatre.
O'Connor festival
For his first year as director of the Munster Literature Centre in Cork, Pat Cotter has assembled a glittering array of national and international creativity for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival, writes Mary Leland (see also Sadbh, W12). Doyen of the event, running from Tuesday, September 16th to Sunday, 21st, must be US writer Richard Ford, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Independence Day, who will inaugurate the week with a reading and interview at 8 p.m. at the Granary Theatre on the 16th. Lectures (from Professor Maurice Harmon, Professor Ruth Sherry and Dr Donal O'Drisceoil among others) and a series of films fill most of the days, with the night-time programming dominated by readings from, among others, Eugene McCabe, who will share the stage with Dan Rhodes, author of the recent Timoleon Vieta Come Home and named this year as one of best young English novelists by Granta. Poets, novelists, scholars and practitioners of the short story will also offer workshops: beginners will be helped by Aine Greaney and six published writers will have the chance to attend a masterclass by James Lasdun. He will also read with Philip McCann (19th), while Julia O'Faolain will read with Molly McCloskey (20th). Inevitably, the complex literary, personal and political relationships between O'Connor, Daniel Corkery and Sean O'Faolain will be discussed; perhaps it is only in Cork that this trinity seems inextricable, a possibility given further validity by the shared readings of William Wall, Conal Creedon and Frank O'Donovan under the title "The Inheritors of O'Connor and O'Faolain". An even more generous acknowledgement of the fusion - or confusion - of these two legendary Cork writers is the presence of O'Faolain's novelist daughter Julia, who will present the prizes for the first international Sean O'Faolain short story competition.
Another lively link with Cork's literary past will be provided by Harriet O'Donovan-Sheehy, the widow of Frank O'Connor, who will introduce a filmed interview with O'Connor made for the BBC Monitor programme in 1961, and the week will also include Richard Cooke's recent film, Frank O'Connor - His Life and Times. Although it can't be part of the festival week, the Munster Literature Centre must be delighted with the critical success of Song for a Raggy Boy which, directed by Aisling Walsh and starring Aidan Quinn, is based on the autobiographical trilogy written by poet Patrick Galvin, the former chairman of the Centre and, with his wife, Mary Johnson, founder of the festival. The main venue for the week will be UCC's Granary Theatre on the Mardyke, but workshops and classes will be held at the MLC's new premises - the birthplace of Frank O'Connor at 84 Douglas Street, which has been refurbished by Cork Corporation.
Open house in Temple Bar
Temple Bar Gallery and Studios boasts some of the finest, and most coveted, studio spaces in Dublin city centre. Today, from 2-6 p.m., 18 or so of the artists currently working there are opening their studios to the public, writes Aidan Dunne. Anyone interested in having a look at their work, and in exploring the parts of the building not usually accessible to visitors, is welcome. The participating artists include Robert Armstrong, Michael Boran, Clodagh Emoe, Fergus Feehily, Martina Galvin, Sean Hillen, Jaki Irvine, Katrina Maguire, John Moore, Makiko Nakamura, Eamonn O'Doherty, Margaret Tuffy and Oliver Whelan - an impressive and diverse line-up, more than worth checking out. The Open Studios day also serves to underline the availability of the studios for interested artists. Studios are allocated on the basis of competition, and for a variety of terms apart from several years full membership. Details are available from Temple Bar Gallery and Studios.
And furthermore
When a group of young people from Tallaght visited some of Dublin's most prestigious galleries, such as the Hugh Lane, IMMA, the RHA and the Douglas Hyde, for the first time, they found them interesting, but in general, the response to the video work on display was "not impressed, we could do better". The result is Killinarden Short - original digital short films made by Edele Cummins, Michael Usher, Denise Gaines, Lorraine Smith, Wesley Brennan and Terence Salmon. The project is the result of artists Brian Duggan and Mark Cullen being commissioned by South Dublin County Council, funded through the Department of the Environment's Per Cent for Art scheme. Next Tuesday sees the first public screening of the shorts at Killinarden Community Centre at 7.30 p.m. in the main hall. For information, contact Pallas Studios on 01-8561404 or e-mail info@pallasstudios.org
- Upstate Theatre Project is establishing a panel of suitably qualified drama workers for potential part-time employment on its cross-border Crossover Theatre Project and other community-based theatre workshop activities. Upstate works in collective theatre, both with professional artists and within the community, mainly in the larger regional towns and villages of Counties Louth, Monaghan, Tyrone and Fermanagh. The organisation is looking for artists/facilitators with suitable skills and strong, clear commitment to the principles of artistic creation among diverse groups, specifically, performing arts practitioners with experience and a commitment to working in devising drama, leading creative writing processes, performance training for persons with limited experience and drama work with teenagers/older citizens/ inter-generational groups/ "non-national" communities/cross-border and cross-community groups. More information from xxxx (to add).
