The Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music in Belfast is being run in association with the Ormeau Baths Gallery, where most of the events will take place, writes Michael Dervan. The programme kicks off next Monday with a "Stockhausen 60s Night!", and by its close on Friday, the festival will have featured new works by husband and wife team, Nicola LeFanu and David Lums-daine, Ricardo Climent, Paul Wilson, Ian Wilson, Siobhan Cleary, Michael Alcorn, and Kevin O'Connell. Peter Maxwell Davies will be in town for a keynote speech on "The composer in society in the late 20th century" and a double bill of his 1970s music theatre pieces.

Details from: 08 01232 335105.

The third Galway Early Music Festival, scheduled over a single May weekend (Friday 15th to Sunday, May 17th), is running under the banner, "Galway and Spain, 1200-1700". The major visiting ensemble is Andrew Lawrence-King's Harp Consort, whose "Luz y Norte" (St Nicholas Collegiate Church, Saturday 16th) is being described as "an early music Spanish riverdance". Other groups performing include Cois Cladaigh, the Consort of St Sepulchre, the Dublin Waytes, L'Esprit de Danse, the Limerick School of Music Early Music Consort, Misericordia, Pipework, the Shantalla Singers, West Winds, and Zanfona. For details, contact: 091-846356.