Artbeat 21/11/2012

Pictured: Sarah Halpin (double bass), Kevin Brady (drums) and Claire Duff (violin and IBO orchestral leader) Photo: Paul McCarthy

Imagine the sound of jazz percussion coupled with that of a baroque orchestra using original instruments from the period. In 1999, Monica Huggett, artistic director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra, met Oregonian jazz violinist Hollis Taylor. Out of their creative collaboration came ‘Groove Theory’, a work that marries baroque music with jazz, folk and the scientific concept of String Theory. Joining Huggett for a short Irish tour is drummer Kevin Brady, a stalwart of the Irish jazz scene who’s worked extensively with others and his own successful trio featuring pianist Bill Carrothers. The lunchtime performance features a post show discussion with the musicians. Dr Tristan McLoughlin from Trinity Maths Dept will chat about String Theory itself. The evening concert (on the 24th) includes works by 18th century Hungarian and Romani composers.

Thu 22 Nov @ 1pm – Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, Limerick (Groove Theory only)
Thu 22 Nov @ 8pm – The Ballroom at Seapoint, Salthill, Galway (Groove + full concert)
Fri 23 Nov @ 1pm – Project Arts Centre (Groove Theory only)
Sat 24 Nov @ 8pm – Civic Theatre Tallaght (Groove Theory + full concert)

Listen back to Des FitzGerald’s interview with Kevin Brady here.

YAM.ie (Your Arts Map), a new website which maps out arts and cultural events across Dublin was launched in October by Dublin City Council. The website is aimed at 13 to 25 year olds giving them an event guide of events in Dublin city. The service is free to promote events and is linked with google maps. Emma Creedon of Your Arts Map joined Suzanne Parker to tell Artbeat more about the project. Listen back to the interview here.

Artbeat 14/11/2012

Exchange Dublin is a collective Arts centre run entirely by young volunteers. It is a space that actively encourages dynamic engagement with contemporary Dublin through discussions, music, visual arts and performance. Most of the work on displayed at Exchange Dublin is a product of the various autonomous groups that use the space as their creative hub. Artbeat’s Frank Black spoke with Niamh Murphy, one of the organisers and artist/performers involved with Dublin Live Art Festival.

exchangedublin.ie

Listen back to the interview here.

The fifth Dublin Book Festival is underway at its new venue in Smock Alley Theatre until Sunday. Julianne Mooney of Dublin Book Festival Programme Director came on the programme to talk about this year’s lineup.

Artbeat 07/11/2012

Frank Black spoke to a volunteer from Exchange Dublin Co-operative. Exchange Dublin is a collective Arts centre run entirely by young volunteers. It’s a space that actively encourages dynamic engagement with contemporary Dublin through discussions, music, visual arts and performance. Most of the work on displayed at Exchange Dublin is a product of the various autonomous groups that use the space as their creative hub.

Discussion revolved around previous events held at Exchange, most recently, the Dublin Live Art Festival. (As a follow up to that discussion Frank will be interviewing one of the organisers and artist/performers involved with Dublin Live Art Festival on Artbeat next week).

Dympna Cullen spoke with Sabina Wasik co-ordinator of Kinopolos Polish Film Festival which was held recently at the IFI. The film festival is now in its seventh year. Opening on November 8th, the programme’s key strand focused on ‘the dark side of the Polish soul’, as represented by the work of director Wojciech Smarzowski, whose films include Rose (this year’s award-winning opening film).

sonic.art Saxophone Quartet at the Goethe Institut

When the Belgian Adolphe Sax invented his eponymous instrument in the 19th Century, he envisioned it as a powerful member of the orchestra. But musical history points to a very different path for the saxophone, especially its adoption by jazz titans like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. In the liner notes for their latest album, the sonic.art Saxophone Quartet talk about taking a very different musical path from many of their peers. Formed in 2005, this German based group’s energies are firmly placed on what new music composition can bring to the saxophone. Philip Glass’s String Quartet No.3, arranged for sonic.art, is on the Dublin programme and is a fine example of how minimalist sound informs their playing. Other works featured include Irish composer David Fennessy’s Björk influenced piece, Neon, and György Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles.

Tuesday 6th November, 8pm
Goethe Institut, 37 Merrion Sqare East
Tickets €15/€10

National Chamber Choir of Ireland: The White Concert Saturday 20th October

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of American composer John Cage, the National Chamber Choir, conducted by artistic director Paul Hillier, pay tribute by performing Hymns & Variations (1979). Cage used harmonic subtraction techniques on two hymns by William Billings. Each hymn is treated like this five times, resulting in ten variations. This style of vocalisation is a conscious effort to mirror the less adorned, frontier like singing of early European American settlers. The concert also features the world premiere of Jennifer Walshe’s The White Noisery, which ’explores utterances at the edge of sense, from a vast array of human vocal and gestural languages…’. A pre-concert talk at 8pm, with both Walshe and CMC Director Evonne Ferguson, will give insights to these two challenging works.

National Chamber Choir of Ireland: The White Concert
Saturday 20th October, 8.30pm, National Concert Hall
Prices: €15/€12

Artbeat 10/10/2012 – Gavin Murphy ‘On Seeing Only Totally New Things’

If you were out and about in Dublin last weekend, you won’t have failed to notice the many buildings opened specially for the Open House weekend. It’s true to say that we are more engaged than ever with the architecture around us – and noting that much of it unique and worth preserving. An interesting video installation piece ‘On Seeing Only Totally New Things’ exploring the theme of architectural impermanence is currently on show at the RHA Gallery. The artist concerned, Gavin Murphy, joined Artbeat’s Des FitzGerald to talk about the show. Listen back to the interview here.

From the RHA press release accompanying the exhibition: “One of the most familiar of Dublin’s twentieth-century buildings is shortly to be demolished after a life of only 35 years. It is the old IMCO complex on Merrion Road, which is bowing out to make way for a new office and showroom development.” Newspaper article circa 1975, source unknown. Something New Under the Sun is a film concerning ideas around progress, novelty, value, our experience and perception of time and the contemporary, via an attempted portrait of the demolished IMCO building, and the work of its chief designer, Oliver P. Bernard. The IMCO building was, during its brief existence, a major landmark on Dublin’s south coast, yet is all but forgotten today. Similarly, the industrial processes that the company carried out, once part of the fabric of everyday life, are entirely undocumented. IMCO were a large firm of dry cleaners who ran a central cleaning and dying plant in Dublin, alongside approximately 50 branches taking delivery of items of clothing from all over the country. A weekly sponsored radio programme, featuring owner Louis Spiro and presented by Eamonn Andrews, made IMCO a household name. The film draws from significant research conducted in Dublin and London into social, industrial and personal histories. The narrative is interwoven with contemporary accounts, architectural journals, and newspaper articles from 1939, the year of the building’s erection, to 1975 when the building was scheduled for demolition. The second phase of their building, dating from 1939, incorporated a modernist concrete and glass tower, designed by Oliver P. Bernard. A noted architect, scenic and industrial designer, and a champion of modern engineering techniques and materials, Bernard is credited with being instrumental in moving conservative Victorian British taste in a modernist European direction. This film is part of the two–venue exhibition On Seeing Only Totally New Things at The RHA and Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin. Supported through funding from The Arts Council, and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council. Gavin Murphy is a Dublin-based artist and curator with a long engagement with artist-led projects and collaborative initiatives. He is currently a director/curator of the artist–run space, Pallas Projects/Studios, was coordinator of House Projects – a series of seven exhibitions in New York, London and Ireland, and was editor of the accompanying 200–page publication. He is the recipient of various Arts Council awards and residencies at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, and Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Dublin. His series of works On Seeing Only Totally New Things includes the exhibition Remember at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and a forthcoming publication in collaboration with design studio Atelier David Smith.”

To coincide with Gavin Murphy’s exhibition On Seeing Only Totally New Things, DoCoMoMo Ireland and the RHA present the lecture/talk “Remembering Modern Architecture: destruction or restoration” on Thursday, 18th of October at 5.30pm. The discussion panel will be formed by Catherine Croft, Director of the 20th Century Society, Gavin Murphy, artist, Patrick T. Murphy, Director of the RHA and Ellen Rowley, co-founder of the Irish chapter of DoCoMoMo (Documentation Conservation Modern Movement). The lecture is open to the public and will be held in the Friends Room of the RHA . The lecture is free supported by the Irish Architecture Foundation.
Booking for this lecture is advised. Visit rhagallery.ie for full details.

Artbeat 26/09/2012 | Sharyn Hayden; Smock Alley Stories

This week’s Artbeat with Des FitzGerald featured live musical comedy with Dublin comedian Sharyn Hayden and Caoimhe Connolly of the Smock Alley Theatre, who are embarking on an interesting social history project.

How to describe Sharyn? Best to let her press release do the talking: Sharyn Hayden hosted Ireland’s very first musical comedy awards (The IMCAs!) in April of this year. The event was received with rousing applause and various confrontational conversations about WHAT THE EFF IS MUSICAL COMEDY??! but she survived it nonetheless. In defiance, she has founded the first musical comedy club in Ireland, The Fandora Club, which runs monthly in Dublin. She will also host a musical comedy showcase at the inaugural London Irish Comedy Festival in October of this year.

Sharyn’s theatre credits include ‘The Wave’ at the recent Dublin Fringe Festival, ‘Batty Ryan Will Change Your Life!’ with comedian Joe Rooney, one-woman show ‘Up The Duff’ and ‘The Licky Rake Show’ for the ALAF Festival. There are also some pretty cool You Tube videos that you should check out when your boss isn’t looking. In previous carnations, Sharyn has been a singing waitress on Broadway, a schoolteacher and a former actors agent. She probably can’t talk about two out of three of those for legal reasons, but she sure can sing about them.

Caoimhe Connolly of the Smock Alley Theatre joins Artbeat to talk about their interesting social history project involving the venue. She hopes that the collected stories and images about the theatre will powerfully transport former parishioners of Michael and Johns, theatre and Smock Alley regulars and those with an interest in Dublin back to the past.

Listen back to this programme here.