Ireland's Mozart celebrations have already started, and a new website has details of events in the year ahead, writes Catherine Foley

A new Irish website to mark the birth of Mozart 250 years ago will have information on all the events around Ireland this year that are linked to Mozart. It will also include information on related exhibitions, films and lectures.

Following an invitation from Peter Mikl at the Austrian embassy, concert pianist Dearbhla Collins spearheaded the voluntary anniversary initiative. Collins quickly brought on board Gavin O'Sullivan, the Hugh Lane Gallery concert programmer, to plan how they could "pull everything that was happening together". The resulting website, designed by Padraig Kitterick, a postgraduate student at York University, is at www.mozart2006.ie

"I could not imagine a world without Mozart," says Collins. "His star burned very brightly and intensely for a mere 35 years and, as if he was dictated to from on high, he produced in that time some of the most incredible music we know."

This month in particular is the big one, she says, as Mozart's birthday is this Friday, the 27th. This weekend, starting on Friday evening, the Ulster Orchestra's Happy Birthday Mozart weekend in the Ulster Hall, Belfast, has piano concertos and operatic arias featuring Hugh Tinney, Finghin Collins and Mary Nelson.

In Dublin, the National Concert Hall will present two anniversary concerts on Thursday and Friday, featuring the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland Camerata, led by violinist Michael D'arcy and the Collins siblings, Dearbhla and Finghin, with singers Mairéad Buicke and Norah King. On Saturday, the Lassus Scholars and Piccolo Lasso choirs present an anniversary concert at the NCH, conducted by Ite O'Donovan.

The Axa Dublin International Piano Competition will presents a gala Mozart concert in the National Concert Hall on Tuesday, February 28th, featuring its founder and artistic director, John O'Conor. This will include the competition's first winner, Philippe Cassard, and the most recent winner, Antti Siirala.

Classical Opera Company and Opera Theatre Company, Dublin, join forces for the first time to present an exciting new production of Mozart's first opera, Apollo and Hyacinthus (composed when he was just 11 years old), conducted by Ian Page and directed by Annilese Miskimmon, which tours from February 10th.

The new website will be updated during the year with details of events as they are finalised.

The aim of the anniversary celebrations, says Dearbhla Collins, is to look back "at the moment 250 years ago when this genius, who left us such masterpieces as Don Giovanni and the Requiem, and such moments of sublime beauty as the slow movement of the 'Elvira Madigan' piano concerto and the trio, 'Soave sia il vento', from Così Fan Tutte, was born".

"Mozart's music speaks directly to the heart of everybody, across all cultural, intellectual and national divides," Collins adds. Mozart was also "a very fervent freemason", so, in association with the Freemasons' Lodge in Ireland, a weekend in November "in the majestic surroundings of the Freemasons' Hall on Molesworth Street" will be set aside for a concert of tenor arias. It is fitting that Irish tenor Anthony Kearns will perform during the weekend, says Collins, as the first Don Basilio and the first Don Curzio in the very first performance of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro was an Irish tenor, Michael Kelly.

The website also notes that there will be a series of chamber music concerts in the Hugh Lane Gallery in the autumn, with Irish and international musicians.

"Music societies all over the country are including Mozart in most of their regular concert series," says Collins, citing Sligo's Con Brio and West Cork Chamber Music Festival. "And a little bird tells me that the choral societies are planning something big!"

Dublin's Palestrina Choir will be performing a series of 10 Mozart Masses throughout the year in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, beginning with Missa brevis in D, K194, on Sunday, February 26th.

Dearbhla Collins is confident that Mozart would be very happy with the line-up for Ireland's celebrations in 2006. For those who want to notify the website of events, the e-mail address is info@mozart2006.ie.

"So www.Mozart2006.ie . . . that's all you need to remember and you will have all the information at your fingertips," concludes Collins.

Austria has a big programme of events throughout the year, with more than 500 events in Salzburg, where a multi-faceted programme straddles traditional and modern interpretations. This weekend Viva! Mozart, an exhibition celebrating the composer, opens in the twon centre. The celebrations in Vienna this weekend include an open party for the city. Details on www.mozart2006.net