’Merriment and What Not’ Unleashed for 13^th NUI Galway Múscailt Festival

Wednesday, 16 January, 2013: Maeve Mulrennan, Head of Visual Arts, Galway Arts Centre, today (Wednesday, 16 January) launched the 13th annual NUI Galway Arts Festival programme, Múscailt. The Festival, which runs from 4-8 February, contains a superb programme of art, music, performance, dance, literature and film revolving around this year’s theme of ’Merriment and What Not’.

This year's festival hosts an array of international, national and local artists including special guest, Mario Pirovano, who will perform ’Francis the Holy Jester’ written by nobel-prize winner Dario Fo. Mario is the only actor that Dario Fo has permitted to perform this piece. Triko Cirkus Teatar (Best Independent Theatre Company in Croatia in 2012) will bring their hit show ’Slavuj/Nightingale/Rossigno, including four theatre clowns in the style of Jacques LeCoq and three musicians, directed by Lee DeLong. This is their only show in Ireland.

New work is a very important feature of each Múscailt Festival and artist Conor Gallagher will install ’Channels’, an ambitious, mixed media show where original paintings and driftwood sculptures meet. The foyer of the Bank of Ireland Student Theatre will house new installations and art objects by Nick Hitchcox, Maria Hitchcox and Hannah O’Reilly, and Robin Jones will blur the distinction between drawing and sculpture in his outdoor ’Temporary Work’. Artsoc will present their annual show in Áras na Mac Léinn and the duo of art student Paul Kearney and local artist, Podge Daly, will exhibit new oil paintings entitled ’Reflections & Fragments’ in the University Art Gallery.

Nick Danziger, international photographer and film-maker and Adjunct Professor at the NUI Galway’s Huston School of Film & Digital Media and the Irish Centre for Human Rights, will display ’The British’, a collection of photographs of Great Britain in the 1990s.

Closer to home, Women’s ID Project, portrays women in their lives and communities in the Westside and Ballybane in Galway.  New band Immis, Una Ní Fhlannagáin, Brewen Favrau and Ger Chambers, on harp, pipes and accordion will delight and inspire with music full of soul and drive.

Chorchestrad’s performance on the opening night of Múscailt promises to be a highlight. After a spectacular experiment last year, the three societies, the NUI Galway Orchestra, Choral Soc and Trad Soc will join forces again on newly selected material. Traditional music will also feature with performances from students of the Dioplóma sna Dána (Cóiriú agus Stáitsiú an Cheoil Thraidisiúnta). The Witless Band Competition Final will take place in the Student Union Bar on Tuesday, 5 February.

Live artist, Áine Phillips, will perform ’Spectral’, with sound by Trevor Knight, and will also deliver the opening address at a one-day seminar on interdisciplinary artistic collaboration, entitled ’All Collaborators will be shot’. During the seminar professional artists and collaborators will give presentations, and the public are invited to join proceedings. 

Galway University Musical Society (GUMS) will perform the rock opera, ’RENT’, with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson, based on Puccini’s opera La Bohéme in the Black Box, from 5-9 February. ’RENT’ tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side, finding their voices and living for today.  

Múscailt hosts the premiere of new performances including ’Glowpunk’, written and performed by Frank Cronin, a student who has been living in a tent on campus since September and is a distillation of his experiences. Local artists Esti Siles, Judith Bernhardt and Helen Caird will perform ’MOVE’, a new dance meets painting performance. SOLO SHOW will showcase seven original ’five-minute monologues’ by NUI Galway’s students and staff and the Colours Theatre Company premieres a new one-man show ’The Statue’.  

President Jim Browne extends an open invitation to the public to attend the ’The Galway Music Residency-NUI Galway Sponsor’s Concert’, at 1pm on Thursday, 7 February in the Bailey Allen Hall. The specially chosen programme ’A brief history of classical music from Bach to Beatles’ includes ’The Arrival of Queen of Sheba’ by George Friedrich Handel, ’Meditation’ by Jules Massenet and ’Rag Tim’ by Scott Joplin, all performed by Galway Ensemble-in-Residence, ConTempo Quartet, in association with NUI Galway’s Arts in Action programme.

Literature today can take many forms as will be revealed when current staff and alumni read from their latest ’exploits’ in writing and the Writers Society will present an evening of new student writing.

This year new artwork created on-site at NUI Galway will include: a large-scale original photographic work for Áras Moyola by local photographer Aengus McMahon; exhibits by painting and drawing classes on the balcony of Áras na Mac Léinn; new work by artist Marina Wild in DERI ’Art’ Café; and a revamp of the Yarn Bomb Sculpture by NUI Galway Knitting and Crochet Group.

Commenting on this year's line up, Fionnuala Gallagher, NUI Galway Arts Officer said: “Our theme this year, ’Merriment and What Not’, comes courtesy of Eyeore in Winnie-the-Pooh, and encourages the creative act that bursts forth with unexpected results. Everyone is welcome to participate.”

All exhibitions are open Monday to Friday and open to the public, with many of the events free to attend. For further information, or for a copy of the programme, visit http://www.muscailt.nuigalway.ie/ or contact the Arts Office at 493766 or 495098. Tickets for events will be available from the Socsbox at 091 492852 or socsboxsocs.nuigalway.ie. RENT tickets are also available from Town Hall Theatre http://www.tht.ie/ or 569777.

Every year, the  Múscailt Arts Festival features in the University's calendar and provides a platform for the talent and creativity of NUI Galway societies, students and staff, along with those of emerging and established local, national and international artists, to be witnessed and enjoyed by all.  The result is an explosion of creativity and artistic endeavour and many events are free of charge!

http://www.muscailt.nuigalway.ie/

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