Irish times article

Louth Contemporary Music Society is adding to the list of world renowned composers by bringing acclaimed Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina to the county. Gubaidulina’s first visit to Ireland will be a highlight of this year’s Drogheda Arts Festival on the May bank holiday weekend. The Russian will be here for a concert celebrating her work, The Fire and the Rose: the Music of Sofia Gubaidulina, in St Peter’s Church, Drogheda on May 1st, after a film on her life and work in the Droichead Arts Centre.

Also in Drogheda Arts Festival will be a world premiere of an Upstate production of Conall Quinn’s – winner of this year’s Stewart Parker award – The Ones Who Kill Shooting Stars. Commissioned by the festival and directed by Paul Hayes, it’s described as an entertaining and surreal tale of love and death set on a Co Louth beach during the second World War.

Another festival commission is The Marienbad Palace, a visual art exhibition curated by Jacqui McIntosh, exploring ideas of reality where virtual reality is always competing, will be in two venues – Droichead Arts Centre and the Highlanes gallery – and will feature works by Laura Buckley, Diana Copperwhite, Jorge De La Garza, Alicja Kwade, Haroon Mirza and Ian Monroe and takes its title from JG Ballard’s 1989 short story “The Enormous Space” and Alain Resnais’ seminal 1961 film Last Year in Marienbad. Other highlights include dancer/choreographer Claire Cunningham’s, ME (Mobile/Evolution), Cirque de Légume’s show and South Korean born pianist Young-Choon Park.