Front row

The Project Arts Centre's newly appointed artistic director, Kathy McArdle (right), will have the exciting task of programming for Project's new purpose-built premises, due to open in East Essex Street next March. Currently outreach/ education director at The Abbey, McArdle has wide experience as a theatre director and practitioner, working with Rough Magic, The Abbey, Amharclann de hIde and Team theatre companies over the past decade.

She has also collaborated with visual artists, writers, musicians and choreographers and developed community and youth arts projects. She's on holiday at present, mustering her strength for the task ahead, and will take up her new position in the autumn. Presumably her degree in mathematical physics will come in handy for negotiating the "multi-configurable spaces" of the new premises.

Project's outgoing artistic director, Fiach MacConghail (right), has just been appointed cultural director for Ireland's participation in EXPO 2000 in Hanover, which takes place from June to October next year. He will be responsible for Ireland's cultural programme for EXPO 2000, the theme of which is Humankind-Nature-Technology.

MacConghail has been at the helm at Project for the past seven years and was an unsuccessful candidate for the position of artistic director at the Abbey, recently filled by Ben Barnes. This EXPO appointment builds on his experience of presenting Irish artists abroad, as Irish commissioner for the Venice and Sao Paolo Biennales. He is also on the programming committee of the Contemporary Irish Arts Festival planned for the Kennedy Centre, Washington next May.

Ballymun is to gain an Arts and Community Resource Centre as part of the Government's regeneration programme for the area. The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Sile de Valera, announced a capital grant of £900,000 for the proposed community-based centre, which will include a theatre, recording space, rehearsal space and workshop space.

At first glance, Dublin seems a somewhat unlikely location for an international conference on Caribbean Literature in French. Its organisers, the French Department in UCD, point out that the experience of colonialism and its legacy is common to Ireland and the French-Caribbean. They also, more uncomfortably, draw attention to the prominence of many Irish families in the Caribbean slave trade, as traders and sugar plantation owners. Emile Ollivier, a Haitian novelist and academic and Ernest Pepin, a Guadaloupean novelist, are two of the better known exponents of this vibrant French-language literature, and they will be participating in a round-table discussion with Irish writers, Sean Lysaght and Liam O'Muirthile. The conference runs at UCD from Thursday September 2nd to Saturday 4th. For further information: 01-7061175.

A series of masterclasses planned for the University of Limerick over the next few weeks will surely hit the right note with would-be woodwind and brass players. Most masterclass series in this country are aimed at pianists and strings, so almost anything would be welcomed by the beleagured blowers - but not only will these classy classes be given by first-class players from German symphony orchestras, but scholarships are available to help defray expenses. For further details: contact the Goethe Institut in Dublin, 01-6611155. The classes will take place at the Irish World Music Centre, the University of Limerick August 18th - 29th.

The end of a five-week, £37,000 enhancement project was marked last night at the Cork Arts Theatre with the Irish premiere of Lin Coglan's Waking. The play introduces the resident Phoenix Theatre Company and what amounts to a new theatre venue. An intimate playing space at the rear of its bar area has been transformed into a much more accommodating auditorium - still holding only 90 people but with tiered seating, air-conditioning and a flexible, floor-level stage.

Although the sound system has been upgraded, improvements to lighting and other equipment must wait for a while; the costs of the present developments were all borne by the theatre board itself. But judging by current levels of enthusiasm, the plans for a fully professional company seem likely to be realised. Artistic director, Jim Queally, with Donn McMullin and Michael McAuliffe are behind the Phoenix company, and Waking runs until the end of the month. Information from: 021-508398.

RTE has completed its re-structuring of the senior posts within its music department. Miriam McDonald, currently marketing manager of ESB International, becomes the first general manager of marketing and communications. Gareth Hudson, who was general manager of RTE's orchestras and performing groups in the early 1990s, is rejoining the station as executive producer of the RTE Concert Orchestra.

On Saturday, Tallaght Community Arts Centre will be celebrating Japanese culture throughout the day with talks on Japanese taiko drumming and kite-making, a Japanese tea ceremony and a workshop given by the centre's artist-in-residence, the sculptor, Jiro Okuro. For the past two weeks he has been creating a large site-specific outdoor sculpture on the theme of Rubbish Into Art with local teenagers.

Japanese food, an exhibition of photographs and a discussion of Noh theatre will round off the day. Admission is free. Further information from Mary Grehan, 014621501.