What’s on in the Arts
12th January, 2022
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Newry Chamber Music: Join Newry Chamber Music for an afternoon of Beethoven and Brahms with the wonderful Fews Ensemble on Sunday 16th January at 2:30pm in Bessbrook Town Hall.
Tickets available from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beethoven-and-brahms-tickets-238217574177
Duncairn and Beyond Skin presents: Concert for Musicians at Risk.
29 Jan, 7:30pm
An evening of music highlighting the plight of refugees & musicians at risk, where artists from different backgrounds share their music and experiences. Announced so far are Afghan musician Yusuf Mahmoud, Daragh Lynch (lankum) & Iona Zajac with more guests on the night.
The Duncairn and Beyond Skin are supporting the Campaign to Protect Afghanistan’s Musicians and, closer to home, The Campaign to End Direct Provision. There will be a limited audience and a live stream will also be available on the night. This event is a collaboration between The Duncairn and Beyond Skin, in partnership with ICFAM, MARRS & the Schweitzer Institute.
Donate to support musicians at risk in Afghanistan and displaced: https://localgiving.org/charity/beyondskin/project/afghanistan/
For more information visit www.theduncairn.com
Scott’s Jazz Club: Scott's Jazz Club runs a weekly concert in Ballyhackamore club 1a Sandown Road every Friday Night from 9pm. The club provides a welcoming environment for world class jazz music to be experienced in a concert setting. Upcoming performances include:
- 14th Jan Mateusz Chimielewski!
- 21st Jan Darren Beckett Trio
- 28th Jan Hugh Buckley Organ trio.
Visit https://www.scottsjazzclub.com/
Portico of Ards: presents a new programme of events for 2022 with highlights including,
- 22 Jan, Songs from the North: pianist Ruth McGinley and mezzo-soprano Carolyn Dobbin join forces to explore songs from the North of Ireland. The programme includes songs by Hamilton Harty, Howard Ferguson, Joan Trimble, Dorothy Parke and Charles Wood.
- 13 Feb, Phil Coulter
- 19 March, The Shamrock Tenors
To find out more about Portico or concerts coming up please visit porticoards.com
Northern Ireland Opera: presents, Into The Woods, at the Lyric Theatre from 9-27 February. Northern Ireland Opera is delighted to be bringing one of Stephen Sondheim’s most loved musicals to Belfast. ‘Into the Woods’ promises to be a real highlight for audiences in 2022: a wonderfully intriguing show that brings together and intertwines some of the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales, such as Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel, to ask what might have happened before “Once upon a time” and after “Happily ever after”.
This locally built and created musical will be presented at the Lyric Theatre, featuring some of Northern Ireland’s greatest musical and creative talent. Northern Ireland Opera is thrilled to be able to introduce Belfast to some wonderful new local talent while at the same time to be able to showcase some of the West End’s finest performers, some originally from Northern Ireland and making their debut performances back home.
‘Into The Woods’ follows three highly successful productions each February by Northern Ireland Opera at the Lyric: ‘The Threepenny Opera’ in 2018, ‘Sweeney Todd’ in 2019 and ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ in 2020. We look forward to welcoming audiences old and new to this latest production, opening on 9th February 2022. For more information visit www.niopera.com
Ruth McGinley at the Four Corners Festival, Grand Opera House, Belfast on Friday 4th February 19:30. Tickets are free to the public. Following on from interviews with the likes of Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody and Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross, this year Steve Stockman sits down with Derry’s pianist Ruth McGinley, who won the piano final of BBC’s Young Musician of The Year 1994.
Ruth has had quite a journey with her music first leading her to success, then to almost giving up the piano altogether. You’ll be inspired as Steve and Ruth chat about how she rediscovered her gift and found deep gladness in finding musical common ground with divergent acts such as Duke Special, Ryan Vail, Neil Martin and The Priests. Ruth will soundtrack the evening with her astonishing playing.
This event will be In-Person and Online. For free tickets visit https://4cornersfestival.com/event/in-conversation-with-ruth-mcginley/
Ulster Orchestra: presents Salon Sessions. With the aim to expand their support of and collaboration with local music artists, the Ulster Orchestra is launched an exciting new digital series, Salon Sessions, which is available to watch on their YouTube channel. Salon Sessions is free to view. For further information on Salon Sessions, please visit www.ulsterorchestra.org.uk
The Ulster Orchestra also presents the following concerts this month and next:
- 21 January, Rysanov plays Shubert, Ulster Hall
- 26 January, Celebrating the Classical at the Marketplace Theatre, Armagh
- 27 January, Celebrating the Classical at the Alley Theatre, Strabane
- 29 January, The Brilliance of Williams, Waterfront Hall
- 4 February, Rustioni conducts Mahler’s Symphony No.4, Ulster Hall.
- 18 February, Humpreys plays Sibelius, Ulster Hall.
To view the full programme and to purchase tickets visit www.ulsterorchestra.org
Oh Yeah: The award winning NI Music Exhibition at Oh Yeah is now open for visitors. The NI Music exhibition at Oh Yeah is the only permanent exhibit for popular music in Northern Ireland. There is much to see, including a series of storyboards documenting and plotting the history and the stories of Folk, Punk, Rock, Jazz and more. There is a ‘Legends’ series of wall displays that hail the great achievers including Ruby Murray, Van Morrison, Terri Hooley, Bap Kennedy, David McWilliams and Henry McCullough to name a few. Exhibition cases display some unique rock and roll memorabilia including the Fender Guitar that Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol used to write ‘Run’ and ‘Chasing Cars’, a vintage street sign of Cyprus Avenue, made famous in a Van Morrison song, and a specially arranged exhibit of Gary Moore memorabilia.
Exhibition Opening Times
Mon – Fri: 10am-4pm
Sat: 12-5pm
More info will follow on when the Music Bus Tour will restart soon. To enquire about a visit, or for further info and group bookings please contact info@ohyeahbelfast.com or call 02890310845
ITMA: 'Drawing from the Well' is an online monthly ITMA series which connects artists with archival materials to inspire new art. To date, nine videos, podcasts and blogs have been created by leading traditional musicians, singers, and dancers, including Louise Mulcahy, Martin Hayes, Edwina Guckian and Cormac Begley. All episodes are free to view online at https://www.itma.ie/drawingfromthewell
Phil Taggart: ChillDaBeats is the brand new show from NI DJ, Phil Taggart. Every week he brings you a soft focus selection of the best alternative chill sounds along with the biggest guests picking some brain soothers in the Soul Food Selection. ChillDaBeats goes live every Sunday. Listen on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/0M2IpL7ldc1Rui2aa9meX3 This podcast series is supported by emergency funding through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Department for Communities.
Tommy Sands and Artsawonder: In this new online film series, legendary musician, Tommy Sands, films, sings, listens and learns from a singing five times world champion drum major Alan McBride, two young women, Jenna Stevenson and Wendy Graham Hanna, who initiate and drive an Arts hub shop, a rhythmic drum weaver rhythmic drum weaver Damien McKeown and a young woman Bronagh Kelly who lovingly echoes the poetry of her mother. To watch visit Media | Artsawonder (wixsite.com)
Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich: presents Music Corner, the best of traditional music with great traditional musicians every Saturday. Visit https://www.facebook.com/AnChulturlann/
FILM, LITERATURE, DANCE & DRAMA
Seamus Heaney HomePlace: has released details of their new winter-spring 2022 seasonal programme of events.
Highlights include:
- An Afternoon with Michael Longley
- A Wintering Out celebration with Simon Callow and Charles Owen
- Eleanor McEvoy in concert
Visit www.seamusheaneyhome.com for tickets and information.
Grand Opera House: presents a new season of programming with highlights including,
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, 18-22 Jan, 2022
- Maggie’s Feg Run, 24 Jan – 5 Feb 2022
- Scottish Ballet presents The Nutcracker, 9-12 Feb 2022
- Phil Coulter, 16 Feb 2022
For tickets and to see the full programme of performances visit www.goh.co.uk
Millennium Forum: presents a new programme for 2022 with highlights including,
- The Rock Orchestra by Candlelight, 27 Jan 2022
- The Undertones, 28 Jan 2022
- Jake O’Kane, 4 Feb 2022
- Phil Coulter, 18 Feb 2022
- Swan Lake, 2 March 2022
Visit www.millenniumforum.co.uk for tickets and to view the full performance programme.
The Lyric Theatre: presents a new programme for 2022 with highlights including,
- Into The Woods, presented by Northern Ireland Opera, 3-27 Feb 2022
- Callings, written by Dominic Montague and directed by Paula McFetridge
- Patrick Kielty, 15-20 March 2022
- Breadboy, 28-31 July 2022
For further details on all events and to buy tickets visit www.lyrictheatre.co.uk
The MAC presents a new programme for 2022 with highlights including,
- Distortion by Amanda Verlaque (screening), 14 Jan 2022
- Benyounes Quartet presented by Moving On Music, 27 Jan 2022
- Craig Taborn presented by Moving On Music, 30 Jan 2022
- X’ntigone (After Sophocles’ Antigone), 2-13 Feb 2022, c0-production between The Mac and Primecut Productions
- Belfast International Arts Festival and Riham Isaac present Another Lover’s Discourse, March 2022
For further details on all events and to buy tickets visit www.themaclive.com
The Playhouse: presents
The White Handkerchief, 30 Jan – 5 Feb 2022
Performed at The Guildhall. Sunday 30th January marks 50 years in from Bloody Sunday. The White Handkerchief is an impassioned, sensitive, reverent elegy; a major new drama premiering live across the world on Bloody Sunday’s 50th Anniversary. Book and lyrics by Liam Campbell with music by Brian O’Doherty. The drama is produced by The Playhouse and is directed by Kieran Griffiths.
The show will be broadcast live on Sunday 30th Jan and is available to book and watch back for ten days. Tickets are £20 live in The Guildhall or £10 online.
For further information visit www.derryplayhouse.co.uk
DU Dance (NI): presents Belfast Boys, physical dance theatre for boys aged 7-11 years at the Crescent Arts Centre. Classes at 2-3pm every Saturday. No experience is necessary. Book at info@dudanceni.com
Crescent Arts Centre: continue their monthly Book Festival events until March 2022. Details of all events can be found at https://belfastbookfestival.com/whats-on
Declan McConaghy Show: Newry based former BBC broadcaster, Declan McConaghy has created a new series of short films where he talks in-depth to creatives from Newry and the surrounding area who have made a contribution to theatre, music, dance and the performing arts in general. The view the films visit https://www.facebook.com/DMCSHOW or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaH9LxmhE8O1Af3Csk-k6vA
Duncairn: has released details of their new programme of theatre, music and digital classes. Highlights include:
- A Concert for Musicians at Risk featuring Daragh Lynch (Lankum), Iona Zajac, Yusuf Mahmoud and more, 29 Jan 2022.
- Spanner In The Works presents Deception, 1 Feb 2022, 7:30pm Watch as an ordinary family falls victim to scams and see how they learn and move on from the experience. Written and directed by Patricia Downey.
- Sam Amidon, 5 March 2022, 7:30pm. Sam Amidon is an American folk artist, originally from Vermont, US. His parents are Peter Amidon and Mary Alice Amidon, both well established folk musicians who raised him on a diet of old Irish and Appalachian folk. Amidon is a member of the Icelandic music collective/record label Bedroom Community, and is a multi-instrumentalist. As well as singing, Amidon plays fiddle, guitar and banjo.
Duncairn Player: all of the previous video projects can now be viewed from the Duncairn Player including The Duncairn Virtual Cabaret, Take 2, Carlingford and the Ring of Guillion Sessions. Visit www.edenplaceartscentre.com
Wheelworks: unique to WheelWorks Arts is their state of the art ArtCart — a mobile arts studio that travels to your venue and opens up to provide an additional studio space for workshops and is packed full to the brim with digital equipment such as ipads, music and film making technology.
Virtual ArtCart activities take place at your own venue. Where outdoor space is limited, Wheelworks bring the ArtCart creativity inside your centre. They also come with a full outdoor suite — marquees, stage sound, lighting and outdoor heaters.
This unique space allows your young people the opportunity to experience professional equipment in a custom-made studio. It allows your centre to offer a range of socially distance spaces and utilises outdoor space. To book your perfect digital and arts activities just email www.wheelworksarts.com
Streetwise: Fancy learning how to juggle and other circus skills?! In response to Covid 19 Streetwise Community Circus has developed a team of tutors who are now working via Zoom to reach out to those who can no longer participate in workshops. To take advantage of this opportunity all you have to do is email Streetwise on streetwiseathome@gmail.com. Suitable for participants who range in age from 8 to 80 plus.
Arts Care: has a wonderful range of arts activities available online on their Arts Care 4U Premium +, their online arts delivery channel that everyone can access. Arts Care’s new dedicated online arts and well-being workshop resource, ‘Break-Time’, accessed via their website to support the mental, emotional and physical well-being of children and young people through the Arts. New art, music, dance & exercise, drama, creative writing and clown doctor’s CDTV videos will be uploaded regularly and it’s all FREE. Visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ85xLA2BlQQdrnWBhKw1hw
Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich: presents ‘An Exhibition of The Arts Council of Northern Ireland’ extended until the end of Jan 2022. This incredible collection has been curated by Joanna Johnson of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland & Emma Berkery of Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiach to start their 2022 visual arts programme in Dánlann Dillon exploring themes of language, language rights, communication, equality and cultural rights. The collection marks the close of their 30 years’ celebration. The collection will feature a comprehensive range of media, including painting, video, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and drawing, and will be on display in both The Dillon & Na Ballaí Bána galleries.
The artists exhibiting in the collection are: Sinead Bhreathnach-Cashell, Robert Ellis, Edith Fung, Ailbhe Greaney, Maria Jankowska, Shiro Masuyama, Carrie McKee, Kenny McKendry, Eddie Rafferty, Elvira Santamaria Torres, Anushiya Sundaralingam, Shaleen Temple, Ciaran Harper, Karishma Kusurkar and Kylie Chan.
For further details visit https://www.culturlann.ie/en/visual-arts
Craft NI: Visit www.craftni.org
JB Vallely: ‘Vallely at 80’ exhibition, available to view now until 15th January 2022 at The Market Place Theatre, Armagh.
‘Vallely at 80’ is a major retrospective by international and award-winning artist JB Vallely. The artist will revisit drawings and oil paintings spanning almost 63 years as well as showcase new work completed during his 80th year.
This is Vallely’s most extensive solo exhibition since his major retrospective at the Market Place Gallery, in his birth city of Armagh in 2000. This exhibition includes his collection on display in the Archbishop’s Palace, Armagh that covers most of Vallely’ s life as a painter along with his collection of religious pieces on permanent display at Benburb Priory, dating from the early to mid-1960’s.
Valley’s subject matter depicts rural Irish themes, including its strong traditions of which he is passionate about on a personal level. Music, sport, mythology, history and culture feature predominantly in his paintings. He has produced a vast number of pieces over his career, exhibiting regularly at galleries in Belfast, Dublin, Derry and Armagh with additional exhibitions in Italy, Wexford, London, Scotland and Galway.
‘Vallely at 80’ can be viewed at three locations across Armagh, with new works and the artist’s private collection exhibited at the Market Place Gallery. Entry FREE.
Golden Thread Gallery: presents God is Meditating: Still – a new exhibition by Edy Fung.
15 Jan – 19 Feb 2022.
GTG is delighted to present a new solo exhibition by Edy Fung in the Project Space, curated by Sarah McAvera.
God is Meditating: Still explores our current state of uncertainty through investigating the potential of determinism and the possibilities of predictions. Through installation, sound, text and drawing, Fung uses instances of meteorology as an allegory for the possibility of the pre-determined. Referencing a range of thinkers and theories, such as LaPlace and Land, God is Meditating: Still uses the seemingly innocuous topic of weather to force us to question our own beliefs and disbeliefs around the ability to predict the future. Visit www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk
The MAC: presents the following exhibitions:
Alfred Wallis: Artist and Mariner, 8 Dec – 27 Mar, presented in the Tall and Sunken Gallery.
Alfred Wallis (1855–1942) was a mariner and scrap merchant born in Devonport, Plymouth, who spent most of his life in Cornwall. He started painting around the age of seventy, with no formal training and little income. Despite these challenges, his artistic output was prolific. After going to sea as a cabin boy at the age of nine, Wallis spent his early life working on lugger and deep-sea fishing boats off the Cornish coast and in the Atlantic. He later set up a marine scrap store in St Ives. Following the death of his wife, he turned to making art as a creative release from the loneliness he felt. All works in the exhibition are by Alfred Wallis and from the collection of Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge.
Ronnie Hughes: Isobar, 8th December – 27 March 2022, Upper Gallery, The MAC
Ronnie Hughes is one of Ireland’s most dynamic abstract painters. Hughes’ elegant and poised works are executed with complex technical skill yet retain a lightness of touch. While his finished paintings display a diversity of styles, at heart they share a common concern with the lived experience, and what Hughes has described as “the beauty, the fragility and the violence of being.”
Ronnie Hughes’ works evolve over a long time and are generally process-driven to the extent that there is no plan or, in most cases, any sense of the outcome until the works are close to completion. “My role is to steer and nuance their evolution; to balance the elements and, just as often, to disrupt them resulting in the emergence of waves, nebulae, constellations, lattice structures and fields”.
In recent years Hughes’ work has become more ‘optically’ charged, colour and shape are presented as vibrational energies where the haptic qualities that a painting’s surface contains and its ability to record, hold and represent time are amplified.
Hughes’ work is complex and multi-dimensional. The painted surface is constructed through a layering of stratas revealing a range of associative and representational qualities simultaneously. What appears to be random or chaotic is revealed to have a hidden template, structure or pattern, the regimented order of which is constantly gnawed at and undermined.
For further information visit at www.derryvoid.com
Belfast Exposed: Presents the following exhibitions:
Belfast Exposed announces collaboration with Melbourne Centre of Contemporary Photography.
Belfast Exposed, Northern Ireland’s leading photography organisation, present a new exhibition ‘We, Us, Them’ in collaboration with the Centre of Contemporary Photography in Melbourne. The exhibition, which is supported by the UK/Australia Season, is a collaboration between the British Council and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Arts Council for Northern Ireland, will focus on racism and how communities are viewed and stereotyped globally.
'We, Us, Them will see the collaboration for the first time of artists from Belfast/UK and the Centre of Contemporary Photography in Melbourne, Australia collaborating to create an exhibition. Within the exhibition, five artists from Australia will exhibit alongside Northern Ireland stills photographer, Helen Sloan, who has spent her recent years undertaking photography with the worldwide production Game of Thrones, much of which was created in Northern Ireland.
Through the project, all of which will be delivered remotely however exhibited in Belfast Exposed’s Gallery, the artists will create a brand-new exhibition for March 2022 reflecting inherent, innate and accepted racism in society. Parallel, the six artists will undertake new imagery exploring the theme of ‘Land and Language’ within communities in Australia and through Helen Sloan’s work, locally. For her piece, Helen will work with the traveller community within the island. For further details visit www.belfastexposed.org
R-Space: presents the following exhibition:
Places, Spaces and Traces by Cas Holmes
8 Jan – 4 Feb 2022
Cas Holmes is an award winning artist based in Kent. She graduated in Fine Arts from University College of Creative Arts, followed by research into paper-making and textiles in Japan. Renowned for her use of 'the found', she is the author of five books for Batsford, including her most recent ‘Embroidering the Everyday’ (2021) and ‘Textile Landscape:Painting with Cloth in Mixed Media’ (2018). Her work takes an eclectic view on how different places, everyday subjects and the landscape we live in, can inform your textile work
Places, Spaces, Traces reflects on her Romani heritage. She is interested in the commonalities we have as people, the need for a place of our own, family and food. With migration, changes in our working lives and increasing opportunities to travel, our certainty about who we are and where we fit in is unsure. Visit https://www.rspacelisburn.com/exhibitions/05-06-50
CCA: CCA Derry-Londonderry presents
FEROX 14 Jan – 12 March 2022
CCA Derry-Londonderry is proud to present FEROX – its first exhibition of 2022, and artist Ciaran O Dochartaigh’s most extensive solo show to date. Ciaran makes use of a wide range of media – customised tools made of ceramic, marble, granite, sound recordings, technical drawings – in an attempt to deal with themes of generational grief, trauma and healing and how these lived experiences are indivisible from the landscape. Sources for Ciaran’s work are found in his research garnered from historical documentation and archival footage, as well as personal experience and storytelling.
FEROX focuses on Lough Fad East, Donegal – a small body of freshwater that supplies drinking water to the surrounding townlands in the Inishowen peninsula. The ecosystem of the lough has been damaged in recent years, most significantly by the introduction of a new fish species that has irreversibly altered its biodiversity which had previously been unaltered since the last ice age.
Ciaran draws parallels between the ecological decline of the land and the creatures that occupy it, and the collective experience of generational trauma by contextualising the technical drawings of the fish next to an imagined rendering of his late father's stomach, which was completely removed as treatment for a very aggressive form of stomach cancer. This radical procedure resulted in a new stomach organ being constructed from the small intestine.
Throughout the duration of FEROX there will be a series of accompanying events, pending pandemic restrictions. Visit www.artisann.org
Out to Lunch Festival: The 17th edition of the Out To Lunch Festival returns from 8-30 January 2022 with a packed programme of music, comedy, talks and drama. Due to Covid-19 the Festival recently announced that a number of shows have had to be rescheduled with some being live streamed. For full information please see their website www.cqaf.com
IMBOLC Festival: The IMBOLC International Music Festival returns to Derry-Londonderry from 30 Jan until 6 Feb 2022 featuring concerts, workshops, masterclasses community events plus sessions for young people. IMBOLC International Music Festival is firmly embedded in Derry’s cultural calendar and is one of Ireland’s leading folk, trad and roots music festivals. The festival offers high quality blended concert experiences, with a mixture of favourite international artists, alongside new and emerging talent. Highlights of this year’s festival include:
- 6 Feb, Geordie Hanna, the Man and The Songs. A concert in celebration of the songs of Geordie Hanna featuring Daoiri Farrell, Len Graham, Rita Gallagher, Mairead Walls, Gabriel McArdle, Niall Hanna and others. Hosted by Professor Malachy O'Neill with discussion from book author, Martin J. McGuinness.
- 4 Feb, Landless//Jarlath Henderson. Landless are Ruth Clinton, Meabh Meir, Sinead Lynch and Lily Power. They sing unaccompanied traditional songs from Irish, Scottish, English and American traditions in close four-part harmony. Their repertoire features songs of love, death and lamentation, as well as work songs, shape-note hymns and more recently penned folk songs. Landless have performed in a variety of settings, both in Ireland and abroad, and are closely involved with traditional singing sessions in Dublin and Belfast.
Hailing from County Armagh, Ireland, Jarlath Henderson is the first Irish solo artist to win the prestigious BBC Young Folk Musician of the Year Award, which has led to performances at festivals throughout Europe and to GlobalFest in New York City. He is a masterful balladeer, three times ‘All Ireland Champion’ Uilleann Piper, a teacher both in Ireland and Scotland and has featured in numerous BBC television programs on piping and music. A talented and versatile multi-instrumentalist, Jarlath also plays whistle, flute and cittern.
Visit www.imbolcfestival.com for full programme information and to buy tickets.