After four years as director of the Kilkenny Arts Festival, Maureen Kennelly this week announced her decision to vacate the position.
Her tenure was marked by massive expansion of the festival and increased critical acclaim. "I feel that I've given a lot of energy and commitment to the festival, which I have been very happy to do," says Kennelly, "but I think that it's time for a fresh person to take over. It has been a very rewarding job and I've been lucky to work with a great bunch of people."
Kennelly, who completed an arts administration diploma in 1994 at NUI, Galway, worked at various times with The Cat Laughs Comedy Festival, Druid Theatre Company, Fishamble Theatre Company, the Dublin Fringe Festival and Project. She started working with the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 1998 as press officer, before being appointed festival director in December 1998. Given that between 1997 and 2002 the festival budget has grown five-fold, it is clear that Kennelly has overseen a period of great growth for the festival.
While not leaving the post until next October - well after this year's festival, which runs from next Friday to 18th - her position was advertised yesterday in The Irish Times. Kennelly says she intends to take some time off before embarking on a freelance career. The new director should be in place some time in October, she said.
WITH the ESB Dublin Jazz Festival postponed until 2003, the Guinness Jazz Festival in Cork has no serious rival here this year writes Ray Comiskey. Just as well, then, that the lineup news emerging suggests no resting on past laurels. True, what has been done in Dublin has exerted some influence - the trios of Brad Mehldau and Esbjörn Svensson have featured in the capital in recent times, as have singer Ian Shaw, saxophonist Julian Arguelles, guitarist John Abercrombie and pianist Jason Moran, one of the finest young jazzmen to appear in years, for example - but their quality justifies their presence. Why should Cork suffer capital punishment?
Moran could be especially interesting, since he'll be heard in the context of his own trio this time, but he's not the only point of focus where jazz piano is concerned. Two keyboard notables making a first appearance in Cork are the Cuban, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, with his trio, and the still-to-be-confirmed Joe Zawinul, whose past credits include Miles Davis and the seminal group he helped found, Weather Report; Zawinul, who has indicated a desire to come, is expected to bring his Zawinul Syndicate. Other pianists down for the festival include Mulgrew Miller and the veteran Thad Jones-Mel Lewis big band alumnus, "Sir" Roland Hanna.
It doesn't end there. The great trumpeter and flugelhorn player, Kenny Wheeler, is another visitor, as is saxophonist Dewey Redman, perennial avant gardist and father of the even more celebrated Joshua. Heading his own quartet, Redman senior is making a Cork debut, as are organist Barbara Dennerlein and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, already marked as a rising talent.
And there are established figures to reassure the fans, like the trio of stellar guitarists, Bill Frisell, John Scofield and John Abercrombie, all leading their own, vastly different, groups - though aficionados could be in for a few surprises here, since their musical predilections have been, historically speaking, fluid.
Full details of the Irish contingent haven't yet been confirmed. However, it's timely to see singer Christine Tobin, Dublin-born but based abroad for years, where her reputation among musicians is sky-high, getting the kind of festival programme recognition she deserves. Drummer Stephen Keogh will be back with Amampondo, a venture into the marriage of jazz and world music, while jazz and electronica are personified in the rise and rise of the Carroll brothers' Trouble Penetrator. And that's just for starters.
FOR those of you that may be art-starved with the end of the Galway Arts Festival, Artspace Studios' latest exhibition and art trail continues throughout Galway city centre until Tuesday next.
A collaboration between city-centre businesses and Artspace artists, Streets of Art chooses as its exhibition space not only the traditional art gallery, but also the shopfront windows of the town centre. In 13 locations, the work of artists such as Dolores Lyne, Dave Holland, Catherine K O'Leanachain and Nora Maycock, among others, can be viewed in the bookshops, clothes shops and cafes of Galway city. The aim of the exhibition is to "break down the barriers many people put up about art and to open up access between the work of Galway-based artists and the general public".
Further information from Artspace Studios, tel: 091 773046.
ON Monday the arts community in Belfast may be on its best behaviour, as it attempts to impress the judging panel for the coveted title of European Capital of Culture 2008. In all, there are 11 separate bids in the running - the others being Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton and Hove, Bristol and Bath, Canterbury and East Kent, Cardiff, Inverness and the Highlands, Liverpool, Newcastle and Gateshead, Norwich and Oxford - and each city will be visited only once by the judges. In their flying visit, the judges will visit various cultural organisations throughout the city in an attempt to "see, smell and taste" the city. To date Belfast's bid has been dogged by controversy, even resulting in angry demonstrations outside City Hall.Looks like Imagine Belfast 2008 has its work cut out for it.