Emergenza is the world's biggest festival for unsigned bands, with an average of 6,000 bands participating every year in 200 different cities all over the world. Every year the national finalists gets to spend three days in Germany at the Taubertal Open Air festival, where the world final takes place, with an average of 30,000 people showing up over the weekend. This is where, every year, the best band wins a professional production for their first album and where plenty of other musicians are rewarder for their skills with prizes from the festival's sponsors.

 

After leaving college, Ó Briain began working at RTÉ as a children's TV presenter. At this time he also began performing his first stand-up gigs on the Irish comedy circuit. He admitted, "I did the trip from Donegal to Dublin to play to six people; then I turned round and drove home again. I did about three or four years playing to a lot of bad rooms, but learning as I went. It's not bad when someone gives you 40 quid for standing up and telling jokes. I remember thinking: 'This is the life.'"

 

Rock & Roll Karaoke Song Contest. First prize €500. Calling all Karaoke Angels & Demons to sing for the glory of Rock & Roll. Contest commences January 10th, heats every Sunday. Grand final February 28th. The audience picks two finalists each week to go through. Your host Brother Declan with Songs of Faith & Devotion from DJ Rory Montane.

 

The National Gallery of Ireland's famous Vaughan collection of watercolours by JMW Turner (1775-1851) will be on display for the month of January. It includes Turner's most striking works in watercolour painted during his later European tours: the Doge's Palace in Venice, Lake Lucerne, and the fortresses at Bellinzona in Switzerland. This year the exhibition will be complemented by a display of seventeenth-, eight eenth- and nineteenth-century silhouettes and miniatures from the Mary A. McNeill Bequest, comprising works by John Comerford, Richard Crosse and William Grimaldi.

 

Between Metaphor and Object features a range of works from the IMMA Collection, primarily sculptures and installation works from the 1990s. It provides perspectives on the diversity of practice that is represented in the IMMA Collection from this period, explores its particularities, and considers them in the context of international trends of the decade. The title of the exhibition references perceived polarities in art since the 1960s and also proposes the idea of the continuous flux visited upon artworks in the mind of the viewer between symbolism and objecthood. Notably the exhibition incorporates a number of pieces from the Weltkunst Collection, which is on loan to IMMA since 1994. This significant collection of British sculpture and drawings of the 1980s and ‘90s will return to the Weltkunst Foundation in 2010 and the exhibition acknowledges the generous loan of these works.

 

Buddy Mondlock writes songs. He does it so well that some great songwriters have recorded his songs on their own albums. Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith and Janis Ian, to name just a few. But there's nothing like hearing the guy who wrote ‘em sing ‘em. He's not going to pin your ears back with those songs. He's going to draw you into his world. Where a single snowflake follows the trajectory of a relationship, where you get your pocket picked by a Roman cat, where you mightswim over the edge of the world if you're not careful and where dreams that don't come true still count. And it can all be happening in a little folk club or on a stage by a grassy hill or in someone's living room or in the Royal Albert Hall.

 

King tee, brother Like, Ben e see.

 

The much-loved traditional pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk returns to The Gaiety Theatre. Join Jack and his beanstalk on a giant adventure, where Jack must outwit and outrun the giant. This classic tale will capture children’s interest and spark their imagination. When Jack swaps his cow for some magic beans, they grow into an enormous magic beanstalk. Can Jack climb the beanstalk, save the lovely princess from the giant and escape with all his arms and legs? Come along and follow Jack up the beanstalk to find out!

 

Lecturer William Gallagher, Freelance Art History lecturer

 

Borne of an adventurous, no holds barred jam session encounter at last year’s 12 Points Festival, Mantrum is a collaborative project between Swedish and Irish musicians, with reciprocal gigs in Dublin’s JJs and Stockholm’s Glenn Miller Club. The lingua franca is ‘non-idiomatic improvisation’ an intriguing catch all that will allow for maximum spontaneity and invention built around deformed pop hooks and deceptive grooves. Bringing the meatballs to Dublin are saxophonists Thomas Backman and Nils Berg, who memorably led his own quintet at the first 12 Points in 07. Smuggling spiceburgers to Stockholm are bassist Cormac O’Brien, drummer Shane O’Donovan and the project’s creative instigator, guitarist Shane Latimer.

 

Picturing New York comprises 145 masterworks from the photographic collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, covering the period from the 1880s to the present day. It celebrates the tradition of photographing New York, a tradition that frames and influences the perception of this vibrant urban centre. Including photographs by such influential photographers as Berenice Abbot, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Lisette Model, Alfred Stieglitz and Cindy Sherman, it explores both New York and its inhabitants, highlighting associations – from the vast, overwhelming architecture and bright lights, to the diversity of people that lie at the soul of the city.

 

 

 

Ladlane formed in 2004 in Dublin. The band features Eugene Quinn from Templeogue, Dublin on guitar/banjo/vocals, Ray Dempsey from Ballyduff, Co. Waterford on accordion and Colm Keane from somewhere in north county Dublin on fiddle/vocals.

 

With resident MC's Aidan Bishop & Des Bishop, on Sundays is the latest edition, offering Ireland's top comedians the opportunity to test-run brand new material.

 

 

Resident M.C. Simon O’Keeffe

 

Que Pezon! is a Dublin based band. The group is best described as a international musical community who believe in "organic, free-range music".They have been performing tirelessly for the past 7 years. For a true experience of International conFusion check out Que Pezon! in The Mezz, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, every Sunday from 10 pm.