ArtScape:It's a time of change for orchestras in Ireland, writes Michael Dervan. The Ulster Orchestra has a new principal conductor, Kenneth Montgomery, but faces a difficult year "between and betwixt halls", as Montgomery puts it.
The Ulster Hall is closed for refurbishment, and the Waterfront Hall is also unavailable for the opening of the season.
The Irish Chamber Orchestra is for the first time organising its own season of eight concerts in each of three cities: Dublin, Cork, and its home town of Limerick. And both the RTÉ NSO and the Ulster Orchestra seem to have lost their appetite for the kind of composer-focused thematic programming that has been such a revitalising factor in recent years.
Instead, the main focus in Dublin will be the exploration of "many of the faces of German romanticism" - in other words, many of the faces you could expect to encounter in virtually any musical year.
Belfast will have programmes offered under the rather woolly banners of Music in Time and Space, Music that Moves, and Music with Colour (though without Bliss's Colour Symphony).
The NSO opens and closes with Berlioz, the Symphonie fantastique on September 9th, and the even more fantastic Requiem, with its four brass bands (a work not featured by the orchestra since 1966), on May 23rd. The Berlioz is beyond the resources of the Ulster Orchestra, but two other large choral works are common to the seasons in Dublin and Belfast, Verdi's highly operatic Requiem (in Belfast under Celso Antunes on November 16th, and Dublin under Gerhard Markson on February 29th), and Orff's raunchy Carmina Burana (in Dublin under Markson on November 30th, and Belfast under Christopher Bell on March 14th).
The NSO celebrates its 60th anniversary with a gala concert on April 4th, featuring the Dance of the Seven Veils and the final scene from Strauss's Salome, plus Antti Siirala in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, and a new work from John Kinsella. Other commissions during the season are from Kevin Volans (October 5th) and Ronan Guilfoyle (February 8th).
Two sons of famous conductors, who have chosen not to bear their fathers' surnames, make Dublin debuts during the season: Joseph Wolfe, son of Colin Davis, on September 28th; and Oleg Caetani, son of Igor Markevitch, on January 11th.
The Ulster Orchestra finds itself in St Anne's Cathedral for the opening concerts of its Belfast Season, when Kenneth Montgomery conducts Beethoven's Choral Symphony on September 21st, and Bruckner's Fifth a week after that. The orchestra will later be working with some starry singers - chanteuse Ute Lemper (October 26th), counter-tenor Andreas Scholl (November 2nd) and baritone Bryn Terfel (January 18th).
The orchestra is taking Scholl and Terfel to Dublin (October 31st and January 16th, respectively), and it's also presenting an unusual programme in both cities, with Hugh Tinney and Finghin Collins each playing one of Liszt's piano concertos (Belfast on February 19th, Dublin on February 21st). The orchestra's Christmas-time Messiah this year offers the unusual prospect of a conductor from Vienna, Martin Haselböck, in a piece that's usually reserved for interpreters closer to home (December 14th and 15th).
Themajor new work of the Belfast season is by the orchestra's associate composer, Brian Irvine. His Montana Strange (Saturday, February 9th) was influenced by the films of David Lynch.
The Irish Chamber Orchestra (ICO) season features monthly tours from September to May, with a break in December.
The orchestra's own Anthony Marwood directs the October and April tours, with a new work from Deirdre McKay featuring in the April programme.
Ace recorder player Piers Adams is soloist in September, clarinettist Jörg Widmann in October, soprano Ailish Tynan in November, and pianist John O'Conor in December, when Gábor Takács-Nagy makes a welcome return as conductor. Cellist Steven Isserlis is both soloist and director in February, there's a special arrangement of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream music on offer in March, and conductor Douglas Boyd returns in May, with pianist Susan Tomes.
More details for the ICO on 1890-923543 or at www.irishchamberorchestra.info; for RTÉ NSO on 01-4170000 or at www.nch.ie; and for the Ulster Orchestra on 048-90668798 or at www.u-o.org.uk.
Bye Keano: play kicked to touch
Could it be that Irish theatre audiences are not so keen on Keano any more? SFX City Theatre in Dublin has had to cancel plans for an autumn tour of Roy - A Footballer's Tale, a new play by Alec McAllister, which premiered in Waterford and Cork last May before touring nationally, writes Brian O'Connell. Directed by Michael Scott, the play is set during Christmas 2005, prior to Roy Keane's move to Celtic, and it was expected to draw a non-theatre audience into regional venues, some of which had already begun publicising autumn dates. Yet with advance bookings slight, the SFX has decided to pull the tour and kick the play into touch.
The company is now admitting losses of up to €20,000 on the production, and remain baffled as to why box office was so slight. "Anyone who saw the play had a great reaction to it," explained director Michael Scott, "but I guess at the end it boiled down to an identity thing. Theatre people thought it was a play about football and didn't want to go, and football people thought it was a play, and didn't want to go either."
Scott had hoped to take the production on the road from October onwards, with the possibility of a six-week tour, and with venues such as the Glór Irish Music Centre in Ennis already confirmed. In the end it was decided that it was too big a risk given that the show had failed to draw the expected box office numbers during its summer tour.
"We had sketched in maybe three weeks of touring for the autumn," he said. "This followed an eight-week tour earlier this summer. To be honest, we lost a lot of money on the initial tour, so it has left us with a huge cash-flow problem. Our hope initially was that the show would break even and maybe even make a bit of money, but it just didn't happen."
So should the producers of I, Keanobe concerned that the Keane franchise may be on its last legs? Not a bit of it. The musical has just finished a hugely successful 10-week nationwide tour, and will return in the New Year for a further stint. Scott admits to being further baffled. " I, Keanois as popular as ever," he says.
"During our show when people came to us and said, 'this is great - why aren't there more people here?', I had to answer that I hadn't a clue. It brings up the question of what brings people to the theatre.
With this, we still don't know really, the audience just didn't buy it. I always felt resistance to our show.Maybe it's always hard selling a new play. I genuinely don't have the answers."
Good reasons to camp in Clones
Damien Hirst, EugeneMcCabe, Eoin McNamee, Claire Keegan, Stephen Rea, Hugo Hamilton and - just maybe - Michael Gambon are among the contributors to the the Flat Lake Festival and camping weekend, to take place in Co Monaghan between August 25th and 27th, writes Brian O'Connell. "Camping" may not be quite accurate for some guests, who will surely be tempted to install themselves inside the host venue, the magical Hilton Park near Clones, run by Johnny and Lucy Madden - but even those who elect for a tent will find themselves in a hay-scented stubble field with a lake at their toes and the action unfoldingmore or less all around them.
Hirst has donated one of his paintings to enliven an auction of Hirst-inspired works, to be conducted by Nick Nugent; the catch is that the signatures will be on the reverse, so the bidding will be in the dark, so to speak. Also, Colm Tóibín will take on EugeneMcCabe in a debate on Irish literature, and anyone who misses this will have the pleasure of McCabe's own performance as a radio presenter for the weekend. There is to be an "X Tractor" talent show, the Clones Film Festival, a tribute to the late Joe Strummer led by Roger Goodman, and readings from Dermot Healy, Victoria Mary Clarke, Robert O'Byrne, Rhys Ifans et al. The theatrical list includes Rea, Conor McPherson, Jaki McCarrick and Larry McCluskey, with art exhibitions from Margot Quinn and Sarah-Jane Lovett and music from bands including that of Adrian Dunbar.
The festival organisers are limiting capacity to amaximum of 1,000 people.
Tickets are €35 per day, or €90 for a weekend plus camping ticket, with a promise of potential appearances by Neil Jordan and a troupe of Welsh writers,