A “VERY small additional investment” in the arts could ensure that the sector contributes to a reinvigoration of the Irish economy, Arts Council director Mary Cloake has said, as National Music Day is marked in the west.
The arts are “not something peripheral” but are “central to people’s lives”, Ms Cloake stressed in Galway when she marked the “rebranding” of the Galway Music Residency.
The residency, which was just a “gleam in the eye” eight years ago when four Romanian musicians were invited to stay and play in the west, has become “one of the most successful arts projects of its type” over the past decade, Ms Cloake said.
The ConTempo Quartet has now been “re-christened” as part of the Galway Music Residency which aims to invite guest artists from at home and abroad to perform in the city and county.
The quartet “always did far more than play music”, Dr Lionel Pilkington of NUI Galway (NUIG) said, speaking before a recital this week by the quartet with soprano soloist Deirdre Moynihan in Sheridan’s Bar in Galway Docks. The expanded format of the residency would ensure continuation of community and educational programmes. There will also be an apprentice ensemble involving the SoundPost String Quartet from Galway, the Golden String Duo, Cello Duet, from Limerick and the Cantabile Trio from Gort, he noted.
Galway Music Residency board chairman Bernard Kirk recalled how his daughter, a fan of Arctic Monkeys, had to “drag her father” to his first ConTempo performance, and this demonstrated the extent of the quartet’s appeal.
The residency represented “passion, community involvement and commitment and dedication to a vision”, Mr Kirk said.
The residency’s extended programme will include a celebration of the 200th birthday of Robert Schumann, with a “lunchtime in the library” series of concerts on the first Tuesday of each month in Galway City Library.
See thegalwaymusicresidency.ie for full details