Waiting to see where the axe will fall

ARTSCAPE: AS THE FINANCIAL floundering continues, there's apprehension everywhere about Tuesday's Budget. No one expects good news; it's a matter of how bad it will be, and where precisely cuts will fall.

At such a challenging time for the arts there's still an unfortunate vacuum on the Arts Council, despite indications that new appointments would be in September. Since August 13th, six members and the chairperson's place have been vacant, and despite the rumour mill about appointments (including some decidedly off-the-wall suggestions), it is not surprising, given the current mess we've all been dragged into by greed and incompetence, that the appointments have been long- fingered. Appointments are not expected until after the Budget. And let's face it, no one asked to serve on the Arts Council would be keen to be thrown into this funding environment. The hope is that a mostly new council will be strong, proactive and confident enough to deal with the undoubted challenges and stand up for the arts sector.

Minister for Arts Martin Cullen's planned meeting with Theatre Forum on October 1st was cancelled - things have been hectic at Cabinet - and in the absence of the chance to put its case directly to the Minister, the representative body for theatre sent a letter this week asking him not to cut funding for the Arts Council or annual funding for arts organisations, and to prioritise day-to-day spending over capital projects. Percentage increases and decreases for arts funding can be deceptive; the actual amounts involved are generally comparatively small, but the effects can be out of proportion to the money involved. The council's commitment to substantial multi-annual funding for the Abbey and to regularly funded larger organisations - which has been welcome and necessary - means smaller companies are wondering what will be left in the pot.

Some theatre companies and arts venues have been more active in lobbying than others, but everyone must be hoping there won't be a return to the slash and burn of 2003, which followed what were on the face of it quite modest cuts in Arts Council funding. Art isn't a luxury; in times of stress and depression it is more potent than ever.

Tavener's people

English composer John Tavener is the subject of Louth Contemporary Music Society's (LCMS) upcoming Temenos Festival, in Drogheda and Dundalk (October 24th-26th), writes Michael Dervan. LCMS has commissioned a new choral work from the composer. O My People is a setting of a Byzantine text and will be premiered by Stephen Layton's Polyphony choir, which made a big impression in Dublin during the RTÉ Living Music Festival focusing on Arvo Pärt last February.

It was Layton who conducted the first performance of Tavener's seven-hour, all-night vigil The Veil of the Temple in 2003. Soprano Patricia Rozario and the Oriel Trio join Polyphony in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dundalk, on Saturday 25th when the programme will include an excerpt from that vast work as well as Tavener favourites Song for Athene, The Lamb, and Hymn to the Mother of God.

The festival's opening concert, at St Peter's Church of Ireland in Drogheda on Friday 24th, features the Ulster Orchestra under Tõnu Kaljuste (conductor of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir's impressive tour last September) in a programme which includes Tavener's mega-hit of the early 1990s, The Protecting Veil, with the ecstatic cello solo part taken by Latvian cellist Marta Sudraba. Derry mezzo soprano Doreen Curran performs Supernatural Songsand Cork violinist Ioana Petcu-Colan is the soloist in Dhyana, which was originally written for Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti.

The closing concert, with the chart-topping, US-based vocal ensemble Anonymous 4 (one of whose members, Jacqueline Horner, hails from Belfast) and the string quartet Rothko 4, weaves works by Arvo Pärt, Alexander Knaifel and music from the 14th-century Dublin Troperthrough a selection of pieces by Tavener.

Sadly, the composer is unlikely to be able to attend the festival, as he is still recovering from a heart attack he suffered last year, and the public interview that was part of the original plans has been shelved. But anyone who wants a more in-depth experience than a concert performance allows can seek out the choral workshop under Kaljuste (at 2pm on Saturday 25th), which will work on Tavener's The Lambas well as pieces by Arvo Pärt and fellow Estonians Veljo Tormis and Cyrillus Kreek. Workshop details from choralworkshop@me.com and more information is at www.louthcms.org

Staying in Co Louth, the Ardee Baroque Festival celebrates five years of the boutique period music orchestral festival in the atmospheric churches and castles of mid-Louth, November 14th-16th.

The festival makes the most of Ardee and Collon's locations for baroque music, both acoustically and atmospherically. This year sees New York Polyphony's European debut in Ardee. Its repertoire spans about 150 years, including Byrd's O Magnum Mysteriumand Tallis's Mass for Four Voicesand here it focuses on English Tudor polyphony.

The Irish Baroque Orchestra (IBO) under Monica Huggett returns as anchor ensemble of the festival, and will be orchestra-in-residence for the week in Ardee, with rehearsals, education work, and a performance of "A baroque A-Z", featuring works by Albinoni, Biber, Handel, Lully, Vivaldi and Zelenka. IBO co-founder Mark Duley gives an organ recital, and the education programme includes Classic Buskers' schools workshops, a family concert in Ardee Castle and historians John Rountree and Fr Michael Murtagh give lectures about the baroque era. Details on www.createlouth.ie/ ardeebaroque.

At the beginning of this month, the Solomon Gallery left its Powerscourt Townhouse home, writes Aidan Dunne. Suzanne Macdougald's gallery (Tara Murphy is now also a director) had been based there since 1985.

Macdougald, who was previously based in Lad Lane, developed the gallery with great flair and skill, specialising in representational painting and sculpture and building a reputation as a no-nonsense, thoroughly straight gallerist, someone who was unfailingly reliable and good to deal with. In her work as an organiser, consultant, adviser and dealer, she has contributed enormously to the contemporary Irish art market's growth. Recent ambitious initiatives include the annual Collectibles exhibitions of contemporary art and the huge Secret Garden sculpture exhibition in the Iveagh Gardens.

While the gallery is closing, Solomon Fine Art continues, with both Macdougald and Murphy, and plans up to four substantial group exhibitions a year in the Merrion Hotel, as well as another major sculptural event for 2010. The one major change is that, without a permanent gallery, the Solomon will not be in a position to hold solo exhibitions for the artists it has represented until now, which is a real blow.

Kevin Kavanagh, meanwhile, closed at Strand Street but has just reopened in a new, vastly expanded space in Chancery Lane, off Bride Street and Golden Lane, close to Dublin Castle. The gallery's stable of artists has not only grown numerically, it has also matured artistically, so that a move to a larger, better equipped space became a necessity to allow the proper display of work.

The inaugural group show, The World Needs a Narrative, includes a piece by the cult outsider artist Henry Darger, whose works form part of a composite fantasy epic on a Tolkienian scale.