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.

 

 

 

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (previously A Silver Mt. Zion, The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band with Choir and Thee Silver Mountain Reveries) have had many names, which just about says everything you need to know. Odd, but worth it.

 

Pallett is best known as the principal member of the band formally known as Owen Pallett, formerly "Final Fantasy", which is essentially a solo project. Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a loop pedal.

 

What would happen if the words of one of Ireland’s greatest literary figures were merged with the music of one of the most legendary live bands in rock’n‘roll? The answer is An Appointment with Mr Yeats, a show fusing the poetic power of W.B. Yeats and the visceral music of The Waterboys. Since setting The Stolen Child to music on thier classic Fisherman’s Blues album, Waterboys’ singer Mike Scott has been quietly crafting a rich collection of songs utilising Yeats’ poems as lyrics. A few were performed solo by Scott during the Yeats International Festival at the Abbey in the 1990s, but most have remained unheard, waiting for the moment when, in Scott’s words, ‘I had enough songs to create a full programme and present it in a potent, radical fashion, worthy of the Abbey Theatre which Yeats himslf founded.’ For five nights in March 2010 An Appointment with Mr Yeats, will receive its world premiere at the Abbey, performed by a unique extended line-up of The Waterboys featuring Mike Scott and Irish fiddler extraordinaire Steve Wickham. The performance will feature specially invited guest musicians including exquisite new rock vocalist Katie Kim; brilliant flute player Sarah Allen, formerly of Flook; Catalan trombonist Blaise Margall; piano maestro Simon Wallace; and stylish Irish guitarist/vocalist Joe Chester. The twenty Yeats poems in the programme span the poet’s humours from wry to romantic, rustic to mythological, and include famous and lesser-known works. the show will also include a selection of Waterboys favourites, specially chosen and rearranged for this context.

 

Artist’s Proof is an exhibition by 24 Irish and international fine art printmaking artists. Visitors will be able to see the creative methodology of the printmaker showing the development of the idea from the research and exploration stages through to the rigorous process of making the print, requiring great technical skill. The prints will be displayed alongside two working proofs to provide a glimpse of how it was made.

 

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.

 

Nobody has ever seen a living dinosaur, but scientists can give us a good idea of what they looked like and how they moved. We often imagine dinosaurs as colossal flesh-eating beasts that lived on our planet for an incredible 160 million years. Some were indeed gigantic, but many were only as heavy as a Labrador dog and many were vegetarian! Did you know that the Ornithomimus could run faster than an Olympic sprinter? See how the sociable Triceratops lived in herds, caring for and protecting their young. Meet Dilophosaurus, a relative of the first dinosaur found in Scotland. Come face to face with the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the fiercest land predators ever known. This massive animatronic model, 4 metres tall and 7 metres long, is so lifelike you’ll think it’s the real thing! Walk past the head of a hungry Tyrannosaurus and watch as his terrifying jaws go SNAP!

 

ESB became title Sponsor of Feis Ceoil in 2009. Given its distinguished record in Arts sponsorship, its country-wide reach and of course its significance as an Irish company, ESB is the perfect fit as sponsorship partner for Feis Ceoil. The fact that over 2,000 young people from every county in Ireland participate in this competition annually indicates the importance of this organisation to young people who love music. These competitions comprise all musical disciplines from Piano to Strings, Vocal to Brass, Choral to Chamber music. 32 Choirs will be competing for the title of “ESB Feis Ceoil School Choir of the Year”. The sheer depth of community involvement in the competition appeals very strongly to us at ESB as we clearly play an important role in the day-to-day society at every level and are deeply committed to the positive development of young people. ESB Feis Ceoil 2010 takes place from the 15th to 26th March in the RDS Ballsbridge.

 

World music tunes.

 

Dublin's long running Jazz Session.

 

Two men discover more than they bargained for as they while away the night on a train to nowhere. With the help of drink, poker and a beguiling Gipsy they encounter the void within through the lives of each other. Drink, cards and prophecy, not to mention comedy and tragedy pervade this intriguing piece of theatre which examines identity and how seeds sown in the past have a habit of sprouting, whether we like it or not.

 

Over a seven week period well known artist and sculptor Cris Neumann will facilitate the creation of 3D works by Coolmine and Hartstown Community School students in a project that will be a fun reflection of Vodafone Ireland’s Green Agenda Policy. This educational and environmentally innovative visual arts project will explore the concepts of communication, mobility and technology and how these concepts can work in the reduction and recycling of waste. For more information and photos of the works in progress check out the website: www.makeartnotrubbish.com

 

Every Thursday in Andrews Lane Theatre sees Noize, Dublin's most alternative club night which plays the most underground and alternative dance music around and also plays host to Dublin's finest bands and regularly brings in the world's best DJs/Acts to keep youse dancing.

 

 

This play established Brian Friel's reputation as a world-class writer in 1964, and became the toast of Broadway in 1966. A timeless study of youth, old age and the chasm that divides them, the play is that rare thing: a popular masterpiece.

 

 

Angie McLaughlin, a Scot transferred to Dublin via San Francisco, meets Gary Fitzpatrick (Great Western Squares, Pincher Martin, Ciunas) through a mutual friend. He agrees to bring her to an open mike night in a pub, the host doesn't show up, and the bar owner asks the two to takeover. After a few weeks of terrible poets and singers the pair decide to change the open mike policy and build a band instead to indulge in their passion for all things with lyrics, regardless of genre. After two years of carefully being unaware of what they were doing, The Sick and Indigent Song Club had grown to a multi-instrumental six-piece band.

 

Includes light lunch. Emer O'Kelly of the Sunday Independent wrote: "a heart-searing, heart-searching piece of work, provoking tears and haunting the soul. If it doesn't live in dramatic memory, we have neither folk memory nor capacity for pity..... Harding's performance is nothing short of glorious -- a piece of sustained dramatic economy that is performance art of soaring, incandescent strength. Every gesture tells, every step is measured, every pause significant, every subtle change of tone adding to a threnody for a dying soul.....If audiences are not hanging out of the rafters in future venues, there is no soul for drama in Ireland."

 

DJ session by We Cut Corners.

 

This is an experimental exhibition which attempts to addresses the question of what happens when artworks become part of a collection and are subsequently shown in many different contexts. Working from a potential list of works, the artworks will be changed during the course of the exhibition, with removal of artworks generating absences which call to mind gaps in our memory and point to the partially hidden nature of Museum collections. Additions of works will draw out new and perhaps unexpected associations, and new narratives will emerge within the overall structure of the exhibition. Other strategies such as repositioning works within the exhibition will be used to alter the pace of the exhibition. A list of these potential works will not be disclosed in advance.

 

 

 

 

Colum McDonnell: Top comedian of 2009 as voted by The Laughter Lounge staff! Paddy Courtney: The Laughter Lounge favourite cheeky chappie returns to host the show! Plus 2 special guests