THE IRISH première of a new opera, a new children’s show, original drama, comedy, music, and art, will make up this year’s Múscailt - NUI, Galway’s annual arts festival.
Múscailt takes place from Monday February 7 to Saturday 12 and this year’s theme is ‘exploration’.
The festival will host the Irish première of Gatto Marte’s new opera, Colombo Tutto Tondo, (Colombus, the world is round ). In association with Music for Galway RTÉ The Vanbrugh Quartet will perform two concerts celebrating Beethoven’s late quartets.
The NUIG Chamber Orchestra will perform movements from Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony and Weber’s clarinet concerto featuring special guest Robert Solyon. GUMS, NUIG’s musical society will perform its rock musical adaptation of the film The Wedding Singer.
Dermot Healy will read from his forthcoming book, Writing in the Sky, and emerging writer Rab Swannock Fulton will introduce his new sci-fi ‘blog novel ‘in progress, Marcus Marcus and the Hurting Heart.
Also, Rab, alongside the artist Marina Wild, has created a new show for children up to 10 years of age, Pirates, Dragons and Moon Monsters, involving performances of rhyming poems, in the surrounds of original paintings, all on the theme of exploration.
The renowned Spanish sculptor Ana Perez Pereda and artist José María Molina will spend three weeks on campus and create hanging sculptures, entitled Jovian Sequences, linking art and science. The sculptures are inspired by the movements of Jupiter’s moons, in a visual game incorporating the three dimensions of the orbits within the space, and the spiral development.
The two artists will also host interventions in physics and astronomy in conjunction with the Centre for Astronomy and local art colleges, GMIT, GTI, and LIT.
Dutch artist Fred Robeson will transpose 50 individual prints on to the lift shaft on the balcony of Áras na Mac Léinn, to produce a giant artwork entitled Nature Versus the City. He will be working on it from mid-January and will unveil the work during the festival.
The Artsoc’s annual show, this year entitled Black Hole Paradise, will consist of drawings, paintings, textiles, and sculpture.
The Red Apple Tree, a new dance theatre piece, will be presented by The Colours Theatre Company. A new, modern-day, drama entitled Not For Oscar by Shane Daly-Hughes will be performed by the recently formed University College Players. Dramsoc will play The Lime-Tree Bower by Conor McPherson.
The programme includes many more events by Comedysoc, Juggling Soc, Comic Soc, Anime Manga Soc, Filmsoc, individual artists, and new dramatic monologues by staff and students in a SOLOS Show. A comic market-place with chill-out zones is also on offer.
Tickets will be available from the Socsbox on 091 - 492852 or [email protected]. For more information see www.socs.nuigalway.ie and listen to Flirt FM 101.3 for daily updates. The shows are open to the public as well as students. All are welcome.
