ArtScape: The American Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and British playwright Harold Pinter are among the writers confirmed for this year's Dublin Writers' Festival, which will run from Thursday, June 17th to 20th.
Ferlinghetti is recognised as the most influential member of the post second World War Beat movement. He is best known for his collection A Coney Island of the Mind, and as co-founder of the San Francisco landmark independent bookstore and publisher City Lights Books, whose famous Pocket Poets series included Allen Ginsberg's seminal Beat text 'Howl', as well as work by William Carlos Williams. Ferlinghetti, who is also a painter, has not previously read in Ireland - he made a brief stopover here during a trip to Paris after the second World War.
Pinter will take part in a public interview with The Irish Times's theatre critic and columnist, Fintan O'Toole.
Other writers scheduled to participate include Michael Collins, whose novel The Keepers of the Truth was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the 2002 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and Chinese writer Chi Zijian, whose novel Figments of the Supernatural has just been published in English translation.
An African event will look at race, ethnic identity and the relationship between Africa and Europe through the work of four writers of fiction and non-fiction.
Art for Amnesty
More than 100 of Ireland's leading artists have contributed to a forthcoming exhibition - to be opened by Yoko Ono - in aid of Amnesty International.
In the Time of Shaking, which is a sale exhibition, opens in IMMA on May 6th but the work goes on sale to the public next Wednesday at 10 a.m. when the official website, www.artforamnesty.org/shaking, goes live allowing buyers to view and purchase.
The project was the idea of former Arts Council chairman, Prof Ciarán Benson, who selected the work and has written an introductory essay in the 292-page book/catalogue, itself an object of beauty, available in a limited edition (costing €45) with colour reproductions of all the artworks and featuring a new poem by Derek Mahon. The show's title originates from a phrase which Benson remembered from an old translation of Psalm 27.
The list of artists who responded is an impressive indication of the calibre of the work - included is work by Camille Souter, Sean Scully, Barrie Cooke, Patrick Scott, Tony O'Malley, Hughie O'Donoghue, Louis le Brocquy, Basil Blackshaw, Dorothy Cross, Alice Maher, Brian Maguire and Clare Langan. All the work will be on show in IMMA's East Wing from May 7th to 23rd.
Music and moolah
The first European conference on music and finance runs next Tuesday in Dublin. The seminar, organised by the Department of Arts and the Music Board of Ireland, with the support of the European Commission, takes place at Chief O'Neill's Hotel in Smithfield. The seminar will be opened by the Minister for Arts, John O'Donoghue, and addressed by the director general for Education and Culture at the European Commission, Nikolaus van der Pas.
A keynote speech will be given by the chairman and CEO of Roxio Inc and Napster, Chris Gorog. Gorog, a leading figure in the digital media software industry, led the acquisition of the online music service Napster which he re-introduced as a legal music provider in 2003. Other speakers include Harald Hartung, head of the culture unit at the European Commission, Emmanuel Legrand, Billboard global editor, and economist David McWilliams.
The seminar will then split into two sessions involving about 50 experts who will discuss aspects of the industry, from fiscal and accounting models to creative issues.
Each session will make recommendations to the EU presidency and European Commission on how best to provide a measure of public support and access to capital and for music businesses. Further information from Maura Eaton (01-6788481, info@musicboardofireland.ie) or Allison Reekie (0032 2 289 26 05, areekie@kernnet.com).
Telegael and the Emmys
The Connemara-based television group, Telegael, has been nominated for an Emmy award for its series Tutenstein, writes Lorna Siggins. The series, which is co-produced with Porchlight Entertainment of Los Angeles and Nic Entertainment of Korea, is nominated in the Special Class Animated Programme.
Tutenstein is a 26-part animated series about a 10-year-old boy mummy who is struck by lightning and brought back to life in a modern-day museum in a large metropolitan city - where he still thinks he is Pharaoh. It is currently being broadcast on NBC in the US, and on ITV in Britain.
Telegael is responsible for all the post-production on the series, including music composition, foley, sound mixing and picture editing. An Irish-language version of the series will also be available. The Spiddal company is co-producing several international animation series. The Emmy awards are organised by the National Television Academy and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and will be announced on May 15th.
Galway arts awards
Portia Coughlan, Lovely Betty and Car Show - these are some of the productions with which the Galway Youth Theatre was involved during a frenetic season in 2003, writes Lorna Siggins. "Mammoth" was how the judges in the Galway County Arts Awards described it when they gave the theatre company their overall annual award. Apart from productions, the theatre company has also run workshops and projects in areas extending from Clonbur to Cloughanover, from Tuam to Kinvara, from Inis Mór to Gort, and has striven "to achieve excellence at all times", the judges said.
Roundstone Open Arts week won the Connemara section for its innovative and vibrant programme, while the AKIN artist collective, involving artists Jay Murphy, Leonie King, Dolores Lynne, Margaret Irwin and SiobháPiercy, received the award for Oranmore. The Tuam Pen Club won an award for its weekly literature workshops run by Máire Holmes, and Loughrea area winners were James Broderick and the Seamus O'Kelly Players. The Ballinasloe section was won by St Brendan's Primary School in Eyrecourt.
Lighting up Dublin
Dublin's O'Connell Street may have lost out on hosting the Beautiful Night concert to celebrate the EU "Day of Welcomes" on May 1st, but the street will be the venue for what is being called "the largest installation of interactive art in the world".
Vectorial Elevation, created by the Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, allows members of the public to display their own creativity. From next Thursday, anyone who logs on to www.dublinelevation.net will be able to design light sculptures that will then appear in the sky over Dublin. The sky designs are facilitated through the use of 22 robotic searchlights placed around O'Connell Street. Every 15 seconds, a new pattern will be displayed in the sky and be visible from 15 kilometres away.
Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who is assisted by a dozen programmers, designers and technicians, first presented his Vectorial Elevation in Zócalo Square in Mexico city for the millennium celebrations. More than 800,000 people from 89 countries visited the website and millions saw the designs in the city. In spring 2002, the project was installed in the Basque capital city of Vitoria, to coincide with the opening of the Basque Museum of Contemporary Art, ARTIUM. For Dublin it is expected that the website will reach over one million visitors.
In 2001, Vectorial Elevation received the Golden Nica Award, a prestigious electronic art award, given by the Ars Electronica festival and ORF TV in Austria. The installation will operate every night until Monday, May 3rd.
New manager for NSO
RTÉ has announced the appointment of Brian O'Rourke as general manger of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra "with immediate effect," writes Michael Dervan. O'Rourke, who was the orchestra's principal clarinetist from 1966 to 1994, was music/HR executive from 1999 until he took over interim responsibility for the NSO after the resignation of Martyn Westerman as executive director last September. The National Chamber Choir has appointed Jeanette McGarry to the post of marketing officer. Toronto-born McGarry previously worked with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto and the Crawford Gallery in Cork.
Change of plan at Wexford
Wexford Festival Opera has taken the unusual step of changing the repertoire announced for 2004, writes Michael Dervan. The festival will now open with Mercadante's La Vestale. A difficulty with casting - a principal singer placed out of Wexford's reach by a rapid career rise - is believed to have brought about the decision to drop Bellini's Adelson e Salvini, plans for which "have been delayed to a future festival". The last La Vestale seen in Wexford, the one by Spontini in 1979, was the occasion of the famous raked set on which the singers slid dangerously when the daily adhesive treatment failed to work. The festival will surely hope lightning doesn't strike twice.
Singing in the rain dance
Rain-making may have seemed like the biggest problem for the Everyman Palace presentation of Singing in the Rain last week, but just when it seemed that the 1,200 gallons of water and the metres of cables, switches, isolators, pumps,tanks, gullies, gutters, spigots, brackets, valves, heaters, couplers, clamps, switches and stop buttons needed to provide seven minutes of rain were all wound up and ready to go, disaster struck. Simon Coulthard, who was rehearsing his male second-lead role as Cosmo Brown, attempted a back-flip and broke his collar-bone. That was on Friday evening, with the show opening on Monday night. The rain was OK, but nobody was singing until the magic theatre network identified Mark Connell of Felixstowe as a practised pair of legs, having performed the role with the West Yorkshire Playhouse. He arrived in Cork on Saturday at 5 p.m.