ArtScape: Further evidence of the advances in jazz here comes with amilestone in Irish jazz education on Monday, writes Ray Comiskey.
Minister for Education Mary Hanafin will be at Airfield House in Dundrum, where the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Performance (BAJP) will be conferred on 10 graduates - three guitarists, three
bassists, two pianists, one saxophonist and one vocalist - of Newpark Music Centre.
Although such degrees are common in Europe and the US, this is the first non-classical undergraduate degree in music performance in Ireland, where it was accredited last year by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC). Up to then, Newpark had offered only diploma courses since 1996.
The practical side implied by the BAJP is underlined by two groups of young Irish jazz musicians launching debut albums over the weekend. The Kai Big Band, one of whose members, Nick Roth,
will be conferred on Monday, will launch Projections at Bray's Mermaid Arts Centre tonight and at the Sugar Club tomorrow, while Cortisol, a five-piece ensemble, will launch Miscellaneous Meet at the Sugar Club on Monday night.
Both groups include the cream of young talent on the jazz scene here, and the importance of the availability of the BAJP degree course in Ireland is underlined by the fact that one of the principal soloists of the Kai Big Band, Matt Berrill, had to go to the Hague in the Netherlands to complete his jazz degree course.
Farewell to Midsummer
Much surprise has greeted the news that Cork Midsummer Festival director Ali Robertson is to leave next month, writes Brian O'Connell. Robertson leaves the full-time job on November 16th to become
arts officer for Oxford City Council in the UK, while continuing to programme the Cork festival part-time until January 1st, when a new director will be appointed. Robertson has been a key fixture on
Cork's artistic landscape since moving from London in January 1999 to take over the reins at UCC's Granary Theatre. While there, Robertson is credited with helping develop many careers, including those of Tom Creed, Oonagh Kearney, Raymond Scannell and Donal Gallagher.
After leaving the Granary, Robertson began working with the Cork Midsummer Festival in 2003. It was a low-key affair at the time, but has since grown dramatically to become the third-largest arts festival in
the country, with more than 35,000 people attending in 2006. "When I took over the festival it was in a fledgling state but the potential was always there," says Robertson. "It comprised just a few shows, but I think we benefited greatly from the fact that a lot of people were prepared to get involved. Since then there is no doubt it has grown enormously, so much so that Fáilte Ireland have told us that they now list it as one of the top four arts events in the country."
The festival earned a reputation for harbouring off-site work, and has developed a solid working relationship with leading Cork arts companies and the city council.Robertson acknowledges financial
support from Cork City Council, but also its logistical back-up. "This year, for example, all departments have been open to us, from roads to water. There is a great willingness for the event to become what the Galway Arts Festival is to Galway or the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is to Edinburgh."
Robertson says the reasons for a change of direction were both personal and professional. He recently got married and says it's time for new challenges and a new environment. "I think there's a hangover
from Cork's Capital of Culture designation. There simply isn't enough going on at the moment. Hopefully that will pick up. It is frustrating though: the festival is going very well, but it needs certain types of support to take it to another level. I think the Arts Council are beginning to address their commitment to long-term projects. But as it stands the midsummer festival is a victim, as with much arts activity in Ireland, in having an incredibly short planning horizon."
Robertson moves to Oxford as it faces its 1,000-year birthday celebrations next year. "Oxford has been nominated as a centre of culture next year, one of only three in the UK, so it is an exciting time be joining one of the world's great cities," he said.
Twice the Beckett
One of the most intriguing events to come out of the ongoing Paris Beckett 2006/2007 Festival is a bilingual version of La Dernière Bande/Krapp's Last Tape, at the Athénée Theatre until October
28th, writes Lara Marlowe in Paris.
Anne Anderson, Ireland's Ambassador to France, was so taken with the idea that she hosted a discussion about the play and a reception this month. American actor Henry Pillsbury suggested to director Xavier Marchand that they merge Samuel Beckett's two versions of his own play: Krapp's Last Tape, written in English for the Irish actor Patrick Magee in 1958, and La Dernière Bande, written by Beckett several months later. "Bilingualism is central to Beckett's work, so I accepted
the challenge," says Marchand. "But I wanted to avoid staging it the same way in both languages."
The play opens in French, with the solitary, brooding Krapp on his 69th birthday eating bananas, then searching for box three, spool five, of his annual birthday recordings. Listening to his own tape of 30 years earlier, Krapp enters a dialogue with himself as a younger man.
Pillsbury first performed the play when he was 39, and is now 69. "I am sure as hell the only person who did both versions in one night at both ages," he says.
Marchand had the idea of introducing a video screen, hung diagonally behind and to the left of Krapp's table, to make the transition from the French into the English version. The first line of Beckett's play, "A late evening in the future," is projected on to the screen.
Instead of conversing with himself via the tape recorder, Krapp watches himself listening to the recordings at age 69. Far from being monotonous, the repetition in both languages - particularly of the
"farewell to love" passage when Krapp recalls a sexual encounter with a young woman in a punt - takes on a deeper, more poetic quality. "English carries a freight of smell and sweat and earthiness that French doesn't have," Pillsbury says, "so Beckett brought gutter terms into the French version."
Beckett also understood that English lends itself to scatology - hence the name "Krapp" - while French is more geared to pornography - hence "la dernière bande" which means "last erection" as well as "last tape".
Moving pictures
There has been more movement in the commercial and what might be termed the semi-commercial gallery scene in Dublin in the recent past than for decades previously, writes Aidan Dunne.We've seen the renaissance of old spaces and the advent of new ones. Paul Kane, Four, Mother's tankstation, The Lab in Foley Street and the Talbot Studios Gallery are among the recent additions, each bringing something not otherwise catered for elsewhere.
Now, further changes are afoot. Mary Tuohy, who has been at the helm of the Hallward Gallery single-handed for some time now, is bowing out. Fortuitously, this does not mean the loss of an outstanding
venue with a fine track record. John Goode, of the Mill Cove Gallery in Castletownbere, is proposing to take over the space. The Mill Cove and the Hallward have co-operated in the past, and both espouse a distinct, painterly aesthetic, so it makes sense.
Meanwhile, Hillsboro Fine Art is vacating its Anne's Lane premises, but the cloud has a silver lining: John Daly, who runs the gallery, is reopening with more space before the end of the year, close to the Hugh Lane on the west side of Parnell Square.It's a brave move. For many years, Gerald Davis was a lone outpost north of the river. Now Kevin Kavanagh is established there, the Lab is up and running and the Talbot Gallery has a consistent programme of shows. There have been other initiatives as well, including Pallas Heights and shows in the Hendron Building. Hillsboro's move is interesting in the context of the opening of the Hugh Lane's new wing and the City Council's ongoing renewal of the O'Connell
Street/Parnell Square corridor. It's worth remembering that, despite the Celtic Tiger, the fine art sector remains relatively vulnerable. Part of the problem for galleries is that the property boom has meant exponential increases in commercial rents.
*Fishamble Theatre Company is busy next week, with two productions in Dublin on one night. Gary Duggan's award-winning Monged is at the Axis in Ballymun on Monday and Tuesday and at
the Mill in Dundrum on Friday and Saturday before going on to the Liverpool Irish Festival. On Friday, the same night Monged is in Dundrum, Fishamble will present Forgotten, written and performed by Pat Kinevane, in the Millbank Theatre, Rush, in aid of the Irish Seal Foundation
