2010 is a diminishing year for thousands of companies, agencies and arts bodies, as it is for so many individuals. Irish Chamber Orchestra is subject to the same downsizing, with its budget cuts and an audience struggling with income.
This year’s orchestra festival is called the MBNA Limerick International Music Festival Weekend, a long title for a short but eclectic few days.
Its programme “is a little constricted”, admitted CEO John Kelly at last week’s launch.
Gone are the three-tiers of lunchtime concerts, the 7.30pm main event and a candlelit 10.15pm recital at St Mary’s Cathedral. Music Factory is separated to become a stand-alone event in July, but the festival weekend, Thursday May 27 to Sunday May 30, will offer something to many.
A riverside reception sponsored by Limerick Strand Hotel threw light on what’s ahead, including a pitch at a wider arts festival for Limerick by 2012 led by the ICO and UL’s Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.
Eoghan Prendergast of Shannon Development, Pippa Little of LCGA, Emma Foote of UCH, Matt Gidney of LSAD, Kathleen Turner of Sing Out with Strings initiative and new ICO board appointee Hugh Murray were at the Strand’s Café Terrace to hear of:
* Chorus by Candlelight. It opens the festival on Thursday 27, 9pm in St Mary’s Cathedral, with Irish Chamber Orchestra Chorus accompanied by Trevor Selby on organ.
* Declan O’Rourke is in Dolan’s Warehouse Friday 28, 8pm and the weekend centrepiece is Saturday 29’s Viennese Strauss Gala, with the ICO joined by members of Vienna Philharmonic.
* Sunday 30 remains at UCH for the afternoon with The Amazing Adventure of Dastardly Dr Darkpants, directed by Mike Finn.
Talking to ICO chief executive John Kelly, MBNA sponsorship is most welcome in the light of “reduced funding from city and county councils and sponsors. The orchestra’s funding by Arts Council was cut by 11 per cent this year and the cuts have to show somewhere”.
The focus is on community engagement. Viennese Strauss Gala night is a fundraiser for the schools programme. Dr Darkpants is another community effort – budding violinists from the Sing Out with Strings project make a surprise intervention during the zany show.
“We are looking at working with the university on holding a much bigger arts festival for the city,” John Kelly revealed. “Prof. Michael O’Suilleabhain of the IWAMD is leading this and a feasibility study is already in progress. Limerick is a city of culture and we are lucky in that we have all three – sports, arts and education.
“We need to be supported by all the relevant bodies,” he stated. “We’re looking to exploit the different legs of the stool in advance with IWAMD, the ICO, the university and Shannon Development in launching a new festival in 2010”.
