Michael Dervan’s cultural highs and lows of 2014

What were your cultural highlights of 2014?

Jörg Widmann’s sparky advocacy of Mendelssohn with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. A perfectly balanced programme of Beethoven duo sonatas from Catherine Leonard (violin) and Hugh Tinney (piano). Absorbing introversion from the US pianist Richard Goode at the KBC Great Music in Irish Houses festival. The unshakably musical purity of the veteran US experimentalist Alvin Lucier at Dundalk Gaol.

A physically and musically immersive production of Marchner's opera Der Vampyr at the Everyman Palace Theatre, in Cork. An utterly French performance of some utterly French songs by Debussy from the French soprano Léa Trommenschlager with the pianist Julius Drake at the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival. The musically revitalised Kilkenny Arts Festival. Style in abundance from the Chilean tenor Juan Diego Flórez, with super support from the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under Sebastiano Rolli. Effortless musical refinement from the Emerson String Quartet at the National Concert Hall.

And the year’s biggest disappointments?

The buried-under-a-bushel profile RTÉ created, especially in Cork and on the RTÉ website, for the newly appointed RTÉ ConTempo String Quartet. The opportunistic decision-making of Minister for Arts Heather Humphreys, who seems only to have to open her mouth to put her foot in it, or make a decision to get something wrong. And the failure of the organs of the State to take ownership of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre.

What caught you by surprise?

Humphreys’s out-of-the-blue announcement designating Wexford Opera House as Ireland’s national opera house. Has she even thought about what a national opera house might be expected to provide?

And what will you be glad to see or hear the last of?

The ongoing threat to the future of the Ulster Orchestra.

Who or what was 2014’s unsung hero?

The people and institutions who have been quietly keeping the show on the road in a world of diminishing resources. You know who you are.

What’s your top tip for 2015?

Keep your eye out for the game-changing work of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra’s principal conductor, John Wilson.

2014 in three words?

Hard to say.