Some cherry-picked musical highlights of the day:

Play with Music at The Contemporary Music Centre

The CMC are hosting a range of installations by multimedia students from around Ireland. Bring the little ones (of 4+) and get creative with the sounds, sights and gadgets at CMC between 1 and 4pm. More info available here.

A Musical Menu at The Queen of Tarts

A delicious slice of cake in one of the yummiest places in town with a string trio on the side? Fancy that? Well then head for The Queen of Tarts on Cow’s Lane at 3pm.

Julie Feeney & Tarab at Meeting House Square

The gorgeous poppy sounds of Galway girl Julie Feeney followed by a lively mix of jazz and traditional music from across Europe in the form of Tarab at Meeting House Square at 7pm. It’s free but you better book your tickets here quickly!

Dirty Dancing – Movies on the Square

What better way to round up a musical day in Temple Bar than with this 80′s classic. Get ready to dance in the aisles (well, the street I guess) and sing along. Tickets are going faster than you can say “no-one leaves Baby in the corner” so get in touch with TBCT now! Starts at 10.30pm.

See you there!

My hand-picked highlights:

Cardboard City workshop with the Irish Architecture Foundation.

Think you might have the next Richard Rogers on your hands? Why not your little ones flex their architecture muscles at a fun hands-on workshop.

• When: 8th-11th July from 11am-1pm
• Where: 5 Scarlet Row, West Essex Street, Old City, Temple Bar
• Age: 9 – 12yrs old
• Price: FREE—booking required, click here for details.

Cirque de Legume

I saw this at Absolut Fringe last year and I laughed until it hurt. You’ll either love or hate this crazy circus duo.

• When: Thursday, 7pm
• Where: Meeting House Square
• Age: all
• Price: FREE

Check out the full programme here or if you’re around town do grab yourself one of the programmes to help plan our your weekend in and around Temple Bar.

It’s a pretty busy programme so here’s a rough outline of what’s on for the weekend that I’ve put together.

You can click here to download it as a PDF or big JPG if that’s your persuasion. The full festival website is here and programme PDF here.

One of the best things about the festival is that most events are FREE. Some are ticketed however so check the website or get in touch with the box office in advance to find out. You can get them at:

Temple Bar Cultural Trust Box Office (TBCT)
TBCT Box Office opens on 17th June
12 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
01 677 2255
info@templebar.ie

You can keep an eye on what’s happening via Twitter at @tbct or even give me a shout at @cloudsteph.

For all the shutterbugs there’s a photo competition happening too. Here’s the details:

Capture culture in Temple Bar during The Summer Sensational and be in with a chance to win a four course dinner for two at La Dolce Vita, a delicious Italian wine bar in the heart of the Old City area of Temple Bar. Competition guidelines available on www.flickr.com/groups/templebarphotocompetition

Despite being a lover of all things artsy, creative and festivals (especially the free sort) it’s probably important to point out that I’ve agreed to help TBCT out with spreading the word about the festival this year best I can. Over the next few days I’ll be blogging, tweeting and telling whoever I meet what I think they might enjoy going along to but don’t worry, my judgement isn’t clouded by the chance of bagging a free phone. If I do win it, it’s a bonus and will be going to a good home.

Hopefully see you around Temple Bar this weekend!

YouTube link (can’t embed it, sorry).

The common man’s games, Paddy Games founding principle is taking silliness very seriously.

Events include Retro Running (i.e. Backwards running), Irish Dancing Hurdles and Mobile Phone throwing.

Fancy free entry to this year’s Electric Picnic in exchange with raising some cash for Temple Street Children’s Hospital? Check out the ‘Tour de Picnic‘ – essentially it’s a 90km charity cycle from Dublin to EP in Stradbally, Co. Laois. Raise €500 and you’re in. Info is available here.

The text shadow is becoming the glossy button effect of old in the web design world at the moment. More and more designers and developers are dabbling in the visual gems that CSS 3 affords despite the fact that CSS 2.1 spec has yet to be signed off. An article on A List Apart today highlights the dangers of ‘forking’ that this adoption of these proposes and offers the solution of a new JavaScript library called eCSStender.

I don’t know how I feel about this. While I agree that forking isn’t ideal I don’t think that loading pages with yet more JS libraries is the acceptable path to take either. What do you think? Will you be using eCSStender? Are you using CSS 2.1 and 3.0 properties yet?

I enjoyed the festival so much last year I decided to get stuck in and volunteer this year. If you can’t make it down to catch any of the live music you might like to keep track of things including results of the various national and international competitions via these channels:

• Cork International Choral Festival page on Facebook
• YouTube channel
• Blog on Posterous
• On Twitter at @corkchoralfest

Here’s one of the most amazing performances I’ve seen so far – really looking forward to hearing them again later on this weekend. The University of Santo Tomas Singers from the Philippines:

I’ll be down there until Monday morning and getting as much of the festival in as possible. Thankfully, I have access to a much better camera than last year and will hopefully get some video clips up over the next few days as the performances roll on .

Will I see you there?

The festival is in it’s 56th year and runs from Wednesday to Sunday next with a huge variety of choral styles and performances from all over the world taking part. A few weeks ago one or two people who were interested in going along this year asked me to give a heads up for what I think are the highlights and events worth going along to so now that the programme is out and tickets on sale here’s my quick guide to the cream of the crop for 2010:

Opening Gala Concert – A Tribute to Aloys Fleischmann

When: Wednesday 28th April 2010, 8pm, City Hall, Cork

Volalists from Cork (Fleischmann Choir) and Dachau (Liedertafel)  join forces with the Cork School of Music Symphony Orchestra for a spectacular performance at City Hall as part of the continuing Fleischmann Centenary celebrations. Read more about the programme here.

Scala

When: Thursday 29th April 2010, 8pm, City Hall

Scala are a 200-strong girls choir (ranging in age from 16 to 26) from Belgium who have gained huge popularity since their foundation by the Kolacny brothers in 1996. What started out as some vocal experimentation has given the choir a huge international reputation and fame as one of the world’s most popular “rock choirs”. The last time that Scala performed in Ireland was at the 2006 festival so don’t miss out on your opportunity to hear this wonderful contemporary, edgy and youthful sound!

The National Chamber Choir of Ireland : To Music

When: Friday 30^th April 2010, 7.30pm, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork

One of the country’s most distinguished and highly regarded choirs The National Chamber Choir of Ireland are attending this year’s festival as the Choir in Residence. They will be performing ‘To Music’ – the first of two cathedral shows on the bill for Friday evening – in the beautiful surroundings of St Fin Barre’s Cathedral. The programme will also feature two world première performances. More information on the evening’s repertoire is available here.

Evocations: Anuna

When: Friday 30^th April, 10.30pm at the Cathedral of St. Mary & St. Anne (North Cathedral), Cork

One of Ireland’s most celebrated and internationally successful choirs will be giving the second of the cathedral performances on Friday night when they perform ‘Evocations’ – a collection of medieval and Celtic song.

Fleischmann International Trophy Competition

Where: Saturday 1st May, 3pm & 8pm, City Hall, Cork

At the heart of the festival is the prestigious Fleischmann International Trophy Competition which is held in two parts on Saturday. The competition this year will feature choirs from Norway, The Philippines, Finland, The Czech Republic, Germany, Singapore, Japan and Ireland! If that doesn’t guarantee a fantastic array of choral performances and styles I don’t know what will! The Choir in Residence (The National Chamber Choir of Ireland) will also be performing on the day along with other international choirs. You can hear samples of each choir in action as well as review the running order of both heats of the competition here.

Closing Gala Concert

Where: Sunday 2nd May 2010, 8pm, City Hall, Cork

This event is probably the most fun, entertaining and enjoyable of all the programme as the choirs and conductors relax and let their hair down after with competition now behind them. Last year’s closing concert featured some of the most jaw-dropping choral performances I have ever heard so fingers crossed that this year will be  just as spectacular. Find out more about who is taking part here.

So there you have it – my recommendations for a busy choral weekend in Cork city. There’s absolutely loads of events including public performances, seminars and workshops on all over Cork city and the suburbs so take a look at the day by day guide here to see what’s on.

Go grab your tickets so you don’t end up disappointed & hopefully see you there!

JDIFF

The festival programme boasts over 120 movie screenings between February 18th and 28th including a special selection of films under the umbrella of ‘Michael Dwyer Season‘ as a tribute to the late co-founder of the festival. Other special highlights include a Kristin Scott Thomas Tribute, a Kenneth Anger Retrospective, the 2nd Annual Library Film Quiz, Celebrating VooDooDog and the Volta Awards.

It’s quite a hectic schedule but nicely laid out in their day-by-day programme on page 9 of the supplement which you can grab here.

Here’s a selection of the stuff that tickled my fancy:

• La Dolce Vita – (Sat 20th, 2pm)
• One Hundred Mornings (Sat 20th, 4.30pm)
• New York, I Love You (Sun 21st, 8.45pm)
• Nino Rota: Film Music (Mon 22nd, 7.30pm)
• I Love You, Phillip Morris (Thurs 25th, 6.30pm)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sat 27th, 11am)
• Alice in Wonderland 3D (Sun 28th, 2pm)

I was delighted to see that Moore Street Masala is included in the Irish Film Board shorts screenings – my 30 seconds of Bollywood fame from a most gorgeous April morning last year rides again

Tickets are getting snapped up very quickly so hot foot it to the ticket office at Curved St, Temple Bar, buzz the ticket sales people on 016877974 or get them online at www.jdiff.com to sort your fix.

The programme of gala concerts has just been announced and includes:

• Gala Opening Concert – Fleischmann Choir, Cork School of Music Symphony Orchestra and the Dachau Liedertafel Choir present Gala Fleischmann Concert
• National Chamber Choir of Ireland
• Anúna
• Fleischmann International Trophy Competition
• Closing Gala Concert

12 choirs have been selected from around the world to participate in the prestigious Fleischmann International Trophy Competition. Finland, Germany, Japan, Singapore, The Czech Republic, Norway, Slovenia, Philippines and Ireland will all be represented.

If you and your choir want to take part in National Competitions, you’ve got until January 31st to submit your application – all the info is here.

Looking forward to it already!