Summer in the City

Things get swinging this weekend (8-11 July) with Temple Bar’s Summer Sensational festival (don’t know about that name tho). Lots of (mostly) free stuff to do in the city come rain or shine – the Contemporary Music Centre is inviting you to Play With Music – two interactive multimedia installations: Dioneye, which distorts the participants’ images while using their movements to generate different sounds; and Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd, which exploits the multiple sound interactions of people as they sit on a park bench. There’s also circus and storytelling including a live Where’s Wally?; sean-nos singing and dancing workshops (that should be fun); a Dance Social with Coisceim; music including Julie Feeney and Balkanarama; a whole rake of short movies at various venues courtesy of Filmbase; a family festival at the IFI; and Movies on the Square including Stand by Me, Dirty Dancing and Jaws. www.templebar.ie

Get a Handel on This

Temple Bar Cultural Trust has all kinds of free activities planned for its Handel Celebrations on Tues 13 April, the 268th anniversary of the first ever performance of probably the best-known choral music in the world, Handel’s Messiah – and it happened right here in the heart of Temple Bar. The annual Messiah on the Street featuring Our Lady’s Choral Society has by now become something of a cultural institution, but newcomers from 3 Dublin national schools will also join in a Global Hallelujah. Music historian Barra Boydell sheds a different light on familiar streets and buildings in his Handel & Dublin 1742 Walk, while Nicolas Carolan of the Irish Traditional Archive presents Ye Lord Mayors Delight, a talk and recital (featuring 4 renowned traditional performers) focusing on the earliest published collection of Irish music. And to wrap it all up (keep warm), Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 movie Barry Lyndon gets an outdoor screening on Meeting House Square. All events are free but some are ticketed, more info @ www.templebar.ie

Summer in the City

You don’t have to leave town to get into the festive spirit, there’s plenty of fun to be had right here, and lots of it is free. Over 50 world-class circus performers will take to the streets and squares for an expanded Temple Bar Circus Festival (9-12 July), which includes some nifty workshops in Circus Skills, Acrobatics and Clay Animation. Highlights include the comic trapeze and giant balloons of the Loyal Club, Australia’s Von Trolley Quartet with their musical slapstick, eastern European circus phenomenon the Great Vasili’s Eruption, the colourful aerial circus of the Barren Carrousel, and a trip up the Liffey with Brendan Byrne’s Magical Circus Cruise. All shows are free tho some require booking. www.templebar.ie

Free Midsummer Fun

Lots of free stuff to do this weekend (see also Street Performance below) with a burst of Midsummer Fun in Temple Bar, as Meeting House Square is transformed into an urban meadow with a carpet of real grass, and the Summer Solstice is celebrated with fire, feasting and film. Events kick off as the sun sets on Sat 20 with the fire dancing and juggling of Brightspark Fire performers, followed by an outdoor screening of Dead Poets Society, beautifully shot and deeply engaging, filmed back in the days when Robin Williams was still bearable. Bring your picnic blanket for Sunday’s Midsummer Fair, when all three outdoor markets will be in full flight. Maypole dancing, magic shows, Punch & Judy, dance-alongs, and music from trad Irish and samba bands, or for something a bit more sedate, local historian Pat Liddy leads a Summer Solstice Walk, leaving Dublin Castle @6pm. You can also catch Music for Midsummer at the Contemporary Music Centre on Sat @6pm. www.templebar.ie

Coming Up

Greetings, reader! Back again after a brief hiatus and suddenly it's the merry month of May, with all kinds of interesting stuff on the horizon. The big one of course is Dublin Dance Festival (of which more anon) which kicks off on Fri 8 May with Bumper 2 Bumper, a silent disco in Meeting House Square hosted by Phantom djs, with dance classes and guerilla dance performances to get you into your stride. It's free but you need a ticket, available from Temple Bar info centre. Ivories are being tickled around the city as the Axa Dublin International Piano Competition gets into full swing. Preliminary rounds are at the RDS Concert Hall  (listen live online @ www.axadipc.ie) and semi-finals are at the NCH, culminating in a marathon of concerto playing on Thur 14 & Fri 15 May. The RTE NSO wind up their season with a cracking concert at the NCH on Fri 22. It's Gerhard Markson's final concert as Principal Conductor, and he pulls out all the stops for Richard Strauss's Oboe Concerto, soloist Stefan Schilli, and Mahler's sublime Resurrection Symphony with the RTE Phil.

Dublin Handel Festival

1685 is one of those dates that every music student knows: the birth year of three incomparable composers, JS Bach, George Frideric Handel and Domenico Scarlatti. Less familiar are the years of their deaths, but Handel actually outlived the other two, shuffling off this mortal coil at the ripe old age of 74 on 14 April 1759 - exactly 250 years ago. Dublin, and specifically Temple Bar, has a special connection with Handel - it's where his most famous work Messiah received its first performance, on 13 April 1742 at Neale's Musick Hall on Fishamble Street. So double reasons to celebrate, and Temple Bar Cultural Trust are pulling out all the stops for this year's Dublin Handel Festival which runs from April 13-19.

There's a rake of free activities, walks, talks and workshops, lots of concerts and of course the annual Messiah in the Street on Mon 13 @1pm, a singalong version with Our Lady's Choral Society at that very spot on Fishamble Street. OLCS turn up again at the NCH on Tue 14 for the Handel 250 Commemoration Concert, the choir of Christ Church Cathedral give a full performance of Messiah on Thur 16, and you can also hear the Guinness Choir singing Solomon, the David Rees-Williams Trio giving baroque music a jazz makeover, Opera Theatre Company performing Acis and Galatea, counter-tenor Graham Joseph singing popular arias, and the Irish Chamber Orchestra playing the famous Water Music. And as an extra special treat, Joseph O'Connor has written a new play, Handel's Crossing, a theatrical re-imagining of the great man's arrival in Dublin in 1742 for that world premiere, which will be brought to life by Fishamble Theatre Company aboard the Jeannie Johnston. More info @ www.templebar.ie