FRIDAY 24.03
CLASSICAL
Levy Strauss Sekgapane (tenor), Albie van Schalkwyk (piano)
National Opera House, Wexford, 8pm €15 nationaloperahouse.ie
Back in the 1980s and 1990s Wexford Festival Opera used to present concerts by prizewinners from the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition. That's how Angela Gheorghiu, who had shared third prize, came to make her Irish début at a concert in Wexford in 1990. The first prizewinner from 2015, Levy Strauss Sekgapane – who is also shortlisted in the young singer category of this year's International Opera Awards – so impressed Wexford Festival artistic director David Agler, that he has invited the South African tenor to give a recital at the National House. Beethoven, Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini, Britten, Fauré, Donaudy, Lalo and Boïeldieu are on the programme.
ART
Canthus
Lunchtime talk, Crawford Art Gallery, Emmet Place, Cork 1pm crawfordartgallery.ie
Throughout the last nine months that Crawford Gallery has hosted a succession of interventions, minor and more conspicuous, by Irish artists Annie O'Ne. The artist's name is a pseudonym. Disregard the apostrophe, pronounce it as it reads and Annie O'Ne becomes Any One. Now, at the conclusion of her "virtual residency", all will be revealed as the artist engages in an informal lunchtime talk with curator Dawn Williams.
LAUNCH NIGHT
Operator
Wiley Fox Dublin 11pm €5 twitter.com/Operator_Dublin
The darker side of techno is what's on show as Operator launch proceedings on Dublin's quays tonight. The headliner is Scottish producer and DJ Ingen, a dude who has shared stages with Derrick May, The Advent and Surgeon in the past, and has collaborated with folks like Paul Mac, Kamikaze Space Programme, Myler and Si Begg. Support comes from Waterford producer Luke Creed aka Scenedrone. Hedges opens the night's proceedings.
PUNK/POP
Boomtown Rats
Mandela Hall Belfast 8pm £32 mandelahall.com Also Sat, Olympia Theatre Dublin 7pm €40 ticketmaster.ie
There was a time, of course, when Bob Geldof's crew couldn't get a gig in Ireland, let alone airplay, particularly after the band's commercial appeal all but disappeared from the early 1980s onwards. These years, however, such bigotry and casual high-mindedness is cast aside, and while Geldof is in no need of cash, it's still good to see him chasing the very thing that inspired him back in the mid-70s. Because they have no new material, these shows will focus on the Rats' numerous late-1970s chart hits such as Lookin' after Number One, Mary of the Fourth Form, She's so Modern, Diamond Smiles, and I Don't like Mondays.
CLUB
Hotbox
The Cellar, Galway 11pm €10/€8 facebook.com/ HotBoxPromotionsIrl
Jack "Shriekin" Sheehan probably came to most people's attention when he was one of the big hits at Boiler Room's Dublin debut in 2015. As part of the Glacial Sound takeover for that visit, the Carlow-born DJ's head-turning mix of grime, dubstep and assorted other low-slung thumpers was one of the event's highlights and showcased a growing scene and appetite for grime. Support for Shriekin's visit to the west from the Wiggle crew and Hotbox residents.
TOUR
Marlene Enright
The White Horse, Ballincollig County Cork 8pm €12 whitehorse.ie Also Sat, The Mariner, Bantry, Co Cork 8pm €10
Cork-based singer-songwriter Marlene Enright has spent some time in a band (The Hard Ground), but next week sees the release of her debut solo album, Placemats and Second Cuts. We've been impressed by what we have heard so far – the singles 123, Alchemy, Underbelly, and When the Water is Hot highlight a songwriter who isn't reluctant to lay bare thoughts that many prefer to hide. She also deploys a range of instinctive melodic gifts that mark her out as one to keep a close eye on. Enright continues to tour nationwide throughout April with gigs in Dundalk (Spirit Store, April 5), Dublin (Whelan's, April 6), Limerick (Dolan's, April 7), Cork (Coughlan's, April 13) and Kerry (Listowel, April 28).
FOLK ART
Clang Sayne tour
Fumbally Stables, Dublin (Friday 24th); Black Gate Cultural Centre, Galway, (Saturday 25th) and Gulpd Café, Triskel Arts Centre, Cork (Sunday 26th); clangsayne.com
Wexford composer/ musician/ poet Laura Hyland's soundscapes explore a rugged, somewhat austere terrain criss-crossed by contemporary folk, avant-pop, improvisation and acoustic abstraction. A singular, defiantly independent voice in the tradition (if that is the right word to describe such waywardness) of Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, and Bjork, Hyland empowers the other members of her Clang Sayne quaret with similar independence. They finish a short Irish tour this week in support of their startling new release, The Round Soul of the World. More at clangsayne.com
TRAD TRIO
Steve Cooney, Brid Harper and Dermot Byrne
Ionad Cultúrtha, Ballyvourney 8.30pm €20/€15 ionadculturtha.ie Also Thurs, Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick
Rumour had it that one of the key musicians who drew antipodean musician Steve Cooney to Ireland was the very young accordionist, Dermot Byrne, whose delicacy of touch and faultless ear set him apart from the get go. Byrne went on to a long and successful career with Altan, but these days he's ploughing a number of his own furrows. This week sees the pair complete their brief tour alongside Donegal fiddler Bríd Harper. Expect a rake of influences from the north-east, not least from Tommy Peoples, John Doherty, Con Cassidy and Danny Meehan. This is refined music making for those with an appetite for the less frequently illuminated corners of trad.
SATURDAY 25.03
CLASSICAL
Emmanuelle Bertrand (cello), Pascal Amoyel (piano)
The Model, Sligo 8pm €20; touring until Thurs musicnetwork.ie
Hot on the heels of their latest well-received CD of Saint-Saëns, the French duo of Emmanuelle Bertrand and Pascal Amoyel include the composer's rarely heard Second Cello Sonata on their current Music Network tour. Their programme includes favourites by Fauré , Liszt, and the first of Brahms's two cello sonatas. Also on the bill is Kevin Volans's for Bob, a work written for and premièred at The World according to Bob, a 2016 celebration of the multifaceted Bob Gilmore (1961-2015), musicologist, musician, and advocate of new music.
ELECTRO-POP
Austra
Button Factory Dublin €22.50 ticketmaster.ie
Founded by Toronto's Katie Stelmanis in 2009 as little more than an electronic music side project, Austra – so titled after Stelmanis's middle name – has for several years been on the cusp of mainstream success. Progress, however, has been slow; it certainly hasn't been for the want of talent, as the band's third and latest album Future Politics appears to have cracked walls that previous albums (2011's Feel it Break, 2013's Olympia)could only dent. Ironically, such a state of affairs could be due to Christine and the Queens, an outfit that has clearly benefited from Austra's often mesmeric electro-pop delights. TCL
CLASSICAL/OPERA
Acis and Galatea
National Opera House, Wexford 8pm €30/€27; touring until Thur, April 13th opera.ie
Opera Theatre Company obviously has a soft spot for Handel's Acis and Galatea. The company's new production, directed by Tom Creed with designs by Paul O'Mahony (sets) and Catherine Fay (costumes), is their second in less than a decade. The pastoral tale of beauty and the beast stars Susanna Fairbairn and Eamonn Mulhall as the lovers, with Edward Grint as the giant Polyphemus and Andrew Gavin as their friend Damon. The new 10-stop tour is a partnership with the period instrument players of the Irish Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Peter Whelan.
FUTURE TERROR
DJ Nobu
Pygmalion Dublin 9.30pm €10 futureterror.net
Future Terror is the name which DJ Nobu gives to his events and parties which he has been running in Chiba back home in Japan since 2001. Nobu is fast developing a name for himself on the western circuit with appearances at The Bunker in Brooklyn, Smart Bar in Chicago, Berghain in Berlin and Dekmantel in Amsterdam. Support for his Irish debut from Mark Lawless and James Rogers.
SOLO PIANO
Marc Copland
Triskel Christchurch, Tobin st, Cork, 8pm, €27.50, triskelartscentre.ie
The fact that Marc Copland didn't start playing piano seriously until he was in his 30s may explain why, now as he nears 70, he is such an unusual and compelling voice on his instrument. Copland trained as a horn player, playing with Chico Hamilton and others in the late 60s – when he made a mid- course correction. Ten years of relative obscurity followed as he mastered his new instrument, before he emerged again in the 1980s. Since then, he has been quietly becoming one of the most respected pianists of his generation, "quietly" being the operative word – perfect for the echoing embrace of Triskel Christchurch's sepulchral space.
SUNDAY 26.03
INDIE ROCK
Warpaint
Vicar St Dublin €34.50/€26.50 ticketmaster.ie
As anyone who has previously experienced LA band Warpaint in a live setting will tell you, there will be no shortage of musical cut and thrust as they return to Dublin for another exercise in punk/pop/indie dynamics. To date, they have released three albums (2010's The Fool, 2014's Warpaint, 2016's Heads Up), and with each successive record, Warpaint has ably managed to develop its creative reach, so whether you're in search of harmony-drenched psych-rock, lush dream pop, plaintive tunes or wigged-out prog, you won't go wanting.
ART
Futures, Series 3, Episode 1
RHA Gallagher Gallery, 15 Ely Place, Dublin rhagallery.ie
First in a new instalment of three annual shows highlighting artists who are becoming established in their careers (Futures, an art odyssey, first appeared in 2001). Series 3, Episode 1 features seven artists. Richard Forrest considers the role of technology in shaping "our perceptual and cognitive experiences"; Kevin Gaffney's lyrically surreal film A Numbness in the Mouth visualises a future, dystopian Ireland; Ann Marie Healy addresses gender representation historically; Elaine Hoey uses virtual reality in a short film on emigration; Ali Kirby makes sculptural assemblages and installations in response to the built environment; Jane Locke combines drawing and scholarship in reconsidering historical narrative and Jane Rainey's paintings excelled in her recent MA show at NCAD.
BIG BAND JAZZ
New Irish Jazz Orchestra
CIT Cork School of Music, Union Quay, Cork, 8pm, €17.50/12.50, facebook.com/events/154457898390461/
Anyone who thinks it's a good idea to put a big band together is probably in need of some psychiatric help. From Duke Ellington to Frank Sinatra, it was the default sound of popular music, and there is still nothing to compare to a well-drilled horn section in full voice, but the economics of the music business have changed and nowadays, the phone calls alone can ruin the average band leader. So Cork trombonist and composer Paul Dunlea deserves plaudits, praise – and perhaps some one-to-one counselling – for holding his New Irish Jazz Orchestra together over the years. The orchestra features some of Ireland's leading jazz talent, and they're joined for this performance at the Cork School of Music by Camembert Quartet saxophonist Derek O'Connor, whose weekly appearances on the Late Late Show only hint at his prodigious jazz chops.
SEAN NÓS
Máire Ní Chéileachair
Cork Singers' Club, An Spailpín Fánach 9.30pm Adm free 021-4277949
A widely admired sean nós singer and teacher of song, Ní Cheileachair brings a rich song tradition from her native Kilnamartyra and beyond to this weekly singing session. Her solo album, Guth Ar Fán, is a touchstone for many singers in search of the essence of what it means to sing sean nós.
MONDAY 27.03
TOP BASS
Thundercat
Vicar St Dublin 7.30pm €25 twitter.com/Thundercat
Time to get Drunk. That's the new album from Stephen Bruner (below), the dude who provided alluring basslines for Suicidal Tendencies, Erykah Badu, Kendrick Lamar and other visionaries. In his own stead, Bruner is equally on another tip and Drunk shows he's well capable of embellishing and amplifying the funk. With guests like Lamar, Brainfeeder boss Flying Lotus, Pharrell, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Wiz Khalifa and Kamasi Washington onboard, it's a release which continues the streak of leftfield greatness Bruner has been on since releases like Apocalypse and The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam. On the back of a year which saw him win a Grammy for his work on To Pimp A Butterfly and appear at Brainfeeder's Hollywood Bowl blow-out, Bruner visits Dublin with Dennis Hamm on keyboards and Justin Brown on drums.
TUESDAY 28.03
ART
Aspasia – An Influential Immigrant: Margaret Corcoran
Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Chancery Lane, Dublin Until April 22 kevinkavanagh.ie
Born in the Ionian city of Miletus – now part of Turkey – around 470BC, Aspasia came from a privileged background. At some stage she made her way to Athens, why or how being unknown. But she became a figure in Athenian society, appreciated for her wit and intelligence as well as for her beauty. She and the statesman Pericles became lovers and, when he divorced, they lived together and had a son. In her series of new, virtuosic paintings and watercolours Margaret Corcoran explores the experiences of Aspasia and others – Eileen Grey included - who managed to flourish in and contribute to societies and cultures that are not their own. Such unexpected congruences, bridging historical and geographic divisions, she implies, are not only noteworthy but also essential to humanity, generating "love, creativity and independence of thought".
THEATRE
The Effect
Project Arts Centre, Dublin Ends Apr 1, 7.45pm €20/€18 projectartscentre.ie
Happiness or sadness, love or indifference, optimism or pessimism: why do we feel the way we feel? Lucy Prebble's 2012 play takes place in a clinical drug trial, but in putting the guarded realist Connie and the irrepressible adventurer Tristan under observation, The Effect (above) is more interested in whether we are free to follow our hearts and alter our own paths, or if we are helplessly in thrall to chemicals in our bloodstream. Is everything in life fated? Is love the drug? Ronan Phelan, who has previously found rich theatre in similar situations of confinement and surveillance, directs the Irish premiere of a play that puts passion under the microscope, and modern medicine under similar scrutiny, while artfully reflecting on the theatre itself. Whatever causes it, a feeling is still a feeling; even the placebo of make-believe can create a real effect.
INTERNATIONAL PIANO DAY
Marcin Masecki
Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Lane, Galway, 7pm, €16, facebook.com/galwayjazz
Marcin Masecki is typical of a new generation of European pianists who are eating away at the once impermeable membrane between jazz and classical music. What is less typical is the wonky, lo-fi approach the Polish virtuoso takes to the classical repertoire: previous projects have involved recording Bach on his grandmother's old, out-of-tune Steinway, and performing Beethoven with noise- cancelling earphones, the better to experience the music as the composer did. His latest assault on classical orthodoxy is seeing how Chopin's Nocturnes sound on old, beaten-up upright pianos. In celebration of International Piano Day, the folks behind the excellent Galway Jazz Festival – who know a thing or two about pianos – are putting not one but two contrasting instruments on stage at the Mick Lally Theatre, a seven foot Steinway and what's described as a "very sweet 1950s English upright". Anything could happen.
WEDNESDAY 29.03
GRIME/HIP-HOP
Stormzy
Olympia theatre Dublin €26.40 (sold out) ticketmaster.ie
Michael Omari is creating a bit of a stir. The London grime/hip-hop artist released his debut album, Gang Signs & Prayer, just over a month ago, and then watched as it entered the UK Albums Chart at number one (the album also topped the Irish Albums Chart). Stylistically, Omari successfully marries grime motifs (as inspired and influenced by the likes of So Solid, Skepta, and Wiley) to contemporary R&B/pop varieties as delivered by the likes of Lauryn Hill, Stevie Wonder and Frank Ocean. Omari is, therefore, not to be pigeonholed. This gig sold out in minutes, but fear not – the man called Stormzy was recently announced as the Friday headliner for Longitude, which takes place at Marley Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin, on the weekend of July 14-16.
HIP-HOP
Run the Jewels
The Limelight Belfast 8pm £31 (sold out) limelightbelfast.com Also Thurs, Olympia theatre Dublin 8pm €40 (sold out) ticketmaster.ie
The week for great hip-hop continues with two sold out shows from fortysomething rappers Killer Mike, Atlanta's Michael Render, and El-P, Brooklyn's Jaime Meline (right). What began four years ago as an experiment is now a hip-hop phenomenon – three albums down the line (the latest is RTJ3, which unexpectedly landed on Christmas Eve of last year, and which features the likes of Danny Brown and jazz fusion man of the moment, Kasami Washington) and the pair can do no wrong. If you like your hip-hop hard, vigorous, sweary, righteously politicised, and with (let's tell it like is, shall we?) casually delivered misogyny, then here you go.
MNÁ MNÁ
Eurydice
Project Arts Centre, Dublin 7.30pm Matinees 2.30pm €12-€16 Runs until April 1st projectartscentre.ie
We could all do with hearing the female perspective in the arts more, and this new work by Joanna Crawley takes the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, and tells it from the latter's perspective, where she is mostly stuck in hell. It's about bloody time; if Orpheus, the tool, had just stuck to the terms of the deal he struck everything would have been fine, wouldn't it? Expect strong visuals to match the live music, on a journey of love, rage, and fury that might just set fire to the patriarchy.
THURSDAY 30.03
ART
McCarthy, Alaska – A Frontier Town
Paul Scannell. Powerscourt Gallery, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, Dublin. March 29-April 30
Having served his time as an interiors photographer in London for 10 years, Paul Scannell apparently headed towards the other extreme and embarked on a season-long residency in Alaska. There he focused on McCarthy, Alaska, a community in the foothills of the Wrangell St Elias National Park. with a population of 28, leaving a great deal of room for the majestic natural surroundings. The McCarthy in question was Irish, James McCarthy. As it happened, the nearby mining town of Kennicot "was alcohol free" and McCarthy saw and filled a gap in the market. Still the population between both communities peaked in the region of 1,000 people and when the mine closed in 1938 they became ghost towns for decades. Scannell found a new, receptive community there in summer 2016.
THE BULLFIGHTER
Matador
Habitat Limerick 11pm €12/€10/€8 twitter.com/Matador320
You can extrapolate a lot about Gavin Lynch's draw as a DJ from the fact that this show comes between dates at the Winter Music Conference in Miami and a return to Madrid. As a live performer, Lynch has always been stepping up to the plate with a show which has seen rock festivals and clubs worldwide. Support tonight from Dale Nolan and Darragh Flynn (OuterBody DJs).
RENAISSANCE TRAD
Kieran Quinn and Seamie O'Dowd
Glór, Ennis 8.30pm €15/€13 glor.ie
Sligo guitarist, fiddler and singer Seamie O'Dowd and pianist Kieran Quinn celebrate the launch of their debut album, featuring an eclectic trad fusion set, with elements of jazz, blues and folk music. O'Dowd is a veteran of Dervish and is a regular collaborator with Rick Epping, Mary McPartlan and others. A well-known Rory Gallagher fan, O'Dowd brings a distinctive musical curiosity to everything he touches.
HOUSE
Dusky
Electric Garden Galway 11pm €8/€5
London-based duo Nick Harriman and Alfie Granger-Howell have spent much of this decade knocking out underground bangers with strong commercial appeal. It's a method which has kept them on the visitor list everywhere from BBC Radio One's Essential Mix to London's Fabric. Support from Paul Belton.
TRIO JAZZ
Engel/Fiske/Jacobson
Arthurs, Thomas St, 8.30pm, €10, arthurspub.ie
The saxophone trio – sax, bass and drums – is a still unusual format in jazz with an obscure but noble tradition. Most famously, tenor colossus Sonny Rollins favoured this chordless, harmonically open setting in which melody is untethered from harmony and there is intense interaction with the rhythm section. This new trio, featuring Cape Town saxophonist Chris Engel, Norwegian bassist Trygve Waldemar Fiske and Dublin drummer Matt Jacobson, promises both. Engel and Jacobson are two of the more adventurous players on the Dublin scene, best known for their work with guitarist Chris Guilfoyle's Umbra. Fiske is most associated with the Hanna Paulsberg Concept, an acoustic jazz quartet who were one of the highlights of the 12 Points Festival in Dublin in 2013.
