My Cultural Year 1

A wonderful Lucian Freud show, stirring performances by Stephen Brennan, Catherine Brennan and Alfred Brendel - these are among the 2007 highlights for those involved in the arts. They share their special moments of the year with Catherine Foley

Tania Banotti
Chief executive of Theatre Forum

My first highlight was the opening of the wonderful new arts centre in Letterkenny by Donegal architect Tarla MacGabhann. It looks incredible. I think it's going to be an amazing thing in the northwest in terms of the arts scene.

My second highlight was William Forsythe's Impressing the Czar, which was on at the Edinburgh International Festival. Culture Ireland took a whole load of people over, and this completely changed the way I think about dance, it was absolutely mind blowing. It's actually ballet but not as you thought of it before. It's the kind of work you'd never get to see in Ireland - it had an enormous cast and a huge stage. We just don't have this kind of theatre in Ireland yet.

My third highlight was a children's show at the Baboró children's festival in Galway called Beowulf, which had two Danish actors and a watering can. They were incredible. They were recounting the Beowulf myth to these children. We were just captivated. They had no costumes and no props except for this watering can, which acted as a trumpet at one stage. They were my three wonderful moments this year.

It was a great year for me generally. I was at many of the festivals around the country, but the Dublin Theatre Festival was the highlight both in terms of the shows and the post-show talks. It was an incredible anniversary year - it was my highlight overall in terms of the variety and the breadth of the work. It made a real impact.

Gerard Mannix Flynn
Artistic director of Far Cry Productions, board member of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) and the Ellis Tate Centre in Connemara, and also a member of Aosdána

The highlights of my year certainly included James Coleman in Documenta 12. It's a visual art event held in Germany every five years. To go over and see this monumental work representing the country was stunning. He's an Irish artist working in film - on an international scale. His 45-minute film piece with Harvey Keitel, Retake with Evidence, was phenomenal. It's a real plus for Ireland that we have his work. It was just phenomenal and gobsmacking to see people from all over the world being mesmerised by the piece.

Harvey Keitel is in an old Grecian ruin in contemporary clothing delivering what sounds like a classical text. He is going over his own massacre and his own ruin - it recalls what's going on in the world. It was deeply interesting as he tries to examine who caused this carnage. And of course it's himself.

Also, Alice Maher's work at home was fantastic in the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). Dermot Seymour at the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery was really profound, and Cecily Brennan's work was equally challenging and an excellent piece of work in the Taylor Gallery - it was very powerful and strong.

Patrick Hall and Maria Simmonds Gooding up in Imma was really superb too.

In terms of film, Days of Glory, about the black foot soldiers of Africa and their betrayal by the French government, in that it didn't recognise their contribution in liberating France during the second World War, was a very profound, sad tale of exploitation and abandonment.

In terms of the theatre, I went to see the Butoh dance troupe Sankai Juku at the Gaiety for the Dublin Theatre Festival. That was extraordinary and showed great foresight for the festival to bring them over.

Theatre-wise I was semi-disappointed. Marina Carr's Woman and Scarecrow was an interesting piece of work. But what did stick out was Rough Magic's Don Carlos, which I thought was of a very

high standard. It's a company that needs a venue of its own. That would bring them on a bit more. They should have a space where they can develop what they need to develop.

Jack Gilligan
Dublin City Council arts officer and director of the Dublin Writers Festival

Quite early in 2007 I saw the wonderful Rough Magic production of Don Carlos, directed by Lynne Parker, with an outstanding Rory Keenan in the title role. I figured that if I saw a better production in the coming months it would surely be a great year for theatre.

It was, indeed, a good year, but Don Carlos still holds its place as my theatrical highlight. It was a rare theatrical occasion when all the elements that go to make up a production seemed to be near perfect - superb performances, brilliant direction and wonderful set design and lighting.

A truly unique Dublin Theatre Festival production for me was Small Metal Objects by Back to Back Theatre. Performed outdoors among the heavy lunchtime pedestrian traffic in Dublin's docklands, it beautifully blurred the demarcation line between performer and audience and was a rare theatrical treat which will long be remembered.

During the year I had the good fortune to visit the Venice Biennale to see the work of cutting- edge, contemporary visual artists from around the world. Among an absolute feast of exhibitions and installations, it was with a great sense of pride that I viewed the very impressive and engaging work of the two representatives from Ireland, Gerard Byrne and Willie Doherty.

The musical highlight of the year was, without doubt, hearing more than 30 internationally acclaimed soloists perform, on the same night, in the National Concert Hall (NCH). They sang in

tribute to their teacher, the former international opera star Dr Veronica Dunne, on the occasion of her 80th birthday. From that world-class line-up, the young soprano Celine Byrne was very special indeed. It was a joy and a privilege to hear Veronica Dunne "top the bill", giving a wonderful rendition of Danny Boy - a truly memorable night.

Another tribute event gave me my literary highlight of 2007 when, in the Gate Theatre, the Dublin Writers Festival celebrated the life and work

of one of Ireland's greatest poets, Thomas Kinsella. Several of our most distinguished writers read their selected Kinsella poem, before the literary legend himself read some of his poems and modestly acknowledged the standing ovation.

Ciara Higgins
Artistic director of the IIB Bank Music in the Great Irish Houses Festival

One of the great masters of the piano, Alfred Brendel, performed at the NCH in August and his performance of two Schubert Impromptus were particularly memorable. I had just come off a nightmare nine-hour flight from Spain so I needed "music to soothe the savage beast". With Brendel's playing, life became calm again.

Two performances of Bach's Goldberg Variations also stand out. Angela Hewitt's account of the work in June demonstrated why she is considered to be one of the world's leading Bach exponents. The string trio version of the same work by Dmitry Sitkovetsky was another musical highlight with musicians Julian Rachlin, Maxim Rysanov and Mischa Maisky.

I was fortunate to hear my idol Rufus Wainwright three times in 2007: at the Palladium in London, where he sang the songs of Judy Garland; and at Belfast's Waterfront and Dublin's Vicar Street in November as part of his Release the Stars Tour. Above all Vicar Street was magical, culminating in a fantastically hilarious performance of Get Happy.

Other musical highlights include: counter-tenor Andreas Scholl at the Opera House in Belfast; the UBS Verbier Chamber Orchestra at the National Concert Hall; and Duke Special in Vicar Street and at the Empire in Belfast.

Theatre highlights include Rough Magic's fantastic production of Attempts On Her Life by Martin Crimp. It really was one of the best things I saw all year. The same company's production of Don Carlos was equally impressive, wonderfully opulent with magnificent performances by Nick Dunning, Rory Keenan and Kathy Kiera Clarke among others.

I also loved Landmark Productions' Blackbird at the Project, with phenomenally stirring performances by Catherine Walker and Stephen Brennan. I also enjoyed Young@Heart's uplifting and engaging performance at the O'Reilly Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Imma is my "neighbourhood" gallery. Particularly wonderful this year was the Lucian Freud exhibition, but I equally enjoyed exhibitions by Anne Madden, Alex Katz and Georgia O'Keeffe.

John Kelly
Broadcaster and writer

I saw two of the best movies I'd ever seen this year. One was Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). It was a very intelligent, uplifting film, asking a lot of questions about what it is to be creative in a grim situation. It was a celebration of the human spirit, the creative spirit, the power of art and literature, even in the face of the most gruesome system. That's probably the best movie I've ever seen.

Possibly the best Irish movie I've ever seen was Garage. Again I didn't really go into it with a happy heart. But from the minute it began you knew you were in sure hands, and the thing was going to be perfectly pitched, and it was. Pat Shortt was brilliant in it. It's a grim, heavy story, but by the same token it's moving, it's beautifully shot and perfectly written and perfectly performed. It think it's a film that Ireland should be very proud of.

The two musical highlights for me were also as it happens films, the Todd Haynes film I'm Not There. I think as a Dylan fan I was going to be pretty hard to please, but I was rapt for the duration and really can't wait to see it again, because it takes a bit of figuring out. It was a really imaginative piece of work and one that does justice to the elusive nature of Dylan. The music is laid across the images in a way that isn't corny, isn't laboured, but seems to reveal even more in the lyrics. It shouldn't work, but it certainly worked for me.

The other musical highlight for me was the Sigur Ròs film Heima. It's a film about their return to Iceland, with concert footage and footage of Iceland and it's a really moving, uplifting, beautiful thing, and the music is just gorgeous

Patrick Murphy
Former chairman of the Arts Council and arts adviser to the President and the OPW

I attended the 20th anniversary of the March Hare Poetry Festival from Newfoundland in Waterford last February and they published a beautiful anthology, all the poets came over and some of the Irish took part. They do it every year in St John's in Newfoundland, but it was the first time they ever did it in Ireland. The poetry there is very vibrant and it's very close to Irish poetry. They are from the people who emigrated for cod fishing from Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Kilkenny.

I attended two concerts that were very memorable. One was the Nice Orchestra playing Sibelius and Bruckner at the Nice Opera House in Nice in June. The other concert was Finghin Collins and friends playing Bach and Mozart in Fota House in Cork at Music in Great Irish Houses Festival - that was lovely.

We were in New York a few weeks ago and there's an exhibition at the moment at the Museum of Modern Art by a black American sculptor, Martin Puryear, and it was just brilliant. It takes all the traditional African ways of  making things and transforms them into marvellous contemporary sculptures.

The other one I saw in America was by a friend of mine, Patricia (Patty) Cisneros, a very wealthy Columbian. She showed her collection of modern South American abstract paintings at the Grey Art Gallery in New York last October. The title of the exhibition was The Geometry of Hope.

I knew a lot of the artists from my travels in South America - it was a very beautiful exhibition.

I'm looking forward to seeing the James McKenna retrospective at Imma. He was a wonderful human being, a playwright, a pianist, a sculptor and a draughtsman.

I saw one wonderful film in New York recently, The Lives of Others. It was one of the most memorable films I've seen in my life - very, very moving and brilliant.