in the Emerald Isle

with KEITH BRAMICH

To end Music & Vision's week of articles with an Irish theme, here are a few Irish links to help you with your cyber-visit to the Emerald Isle ... For live music from Ireland whilst you read the rest of this article, click here. For general (and tourist) information about the country, visit the Irish Tourist Board's site.

Contemporary Music Centre

The Contemporary Music Centre (Ireland) is the place to start when looking for information about Irish composers. CMC have produced the sixth edition of Irish Composers which contains fact sheets about 44 Irish composers, and this can be purchased via the CMC site. There's also a list of composers born in or living in Ireland, with website links where appropriate. You'll see names such as Marion Ingoldsby, Havelock Nelson and Robert Simpson in this list. CMC also have an interesting selection of articles, and their links page is a springboard for other online discoveries.

Irish World Music Centre

Under the auspices (and the web server) of the University of Limerick, the Irish World Music Centre provides information about research and innovation in Irish music worldwide. I recommend a visit here.

The Irish Times

At ireland.com the Irish Times publishes its content online. (If you click on the Dublin 360 link, you can see 360 degree panoramas and a webcam.) Tracking down through 'Dublin' then 'Entertainment' and then 'Music' you'll come to a section which has some classical music listings in the capital. For more listings, Ireland's on-line event guide covers events of all sorts, and it's quite easy to find their sections on music.

National Concert Hall

Dublin's National Concert Hall is not only a good place to look to find concerts of classical, Irish and other types of music (and events), but it's an attractive site in its own right, and has a virtual tour of the hall.

Choral Ireland

You're sure to find details of choral concerts in Ireland posted to Choral Ireland, a discussion group which deals with all genres of choral music in Ireland. Their calendar gives details of upcoming events, but is unfortunately not available to non-members.

Opera Theatre Company

Opera Theatre Company and the Temple Bar Music Centre share an area of IMN - the Irish Music Net, which redefines the acronym MIDI as the Music Industry Directory Ireland - also well worth a visit for its comprehensive listings. For another huge collection of links to Irish music sites, have a peek at Niceone's links to Irish Music Sites which includes sections for on-line music stores, music organisations, recording studios and Irish music resources. Searchireland.ie also has a music section (under entertainment and leisure).

Anúna, ARC and Irish.com

Anúna is a sixteen-member Irish choral group specialising in medieval and contemporary Celtic music (best-known for its contributions to Riverdance). Members of the group maintain its attractive website which (in their words) is 'graphically unintense'. There's a lot of beautiful Irish music at the ARC Music Site. BMG Classics has a site called Irish.com which features BMG's recordings of Irish music.

RTÉ and the Vanbrugh Quartet

The Vanbrugh Quartet have a long association with Radio Telefis Éireann (RTÉ) as the broadcasting authority's resident quartet. You'll find lots of information (including listings and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival) at the Vanbrugh Quartet's website , which is part of the larger RTÉ site. It's also well worth looking at RTÉ's main music page which gives details of their orchestras and choirs, and about Lyric fm - a 24 hour classical music and arts channel launched in May 1999 which streams live over the net in Real Audio, and to which, hopefully, you've been listening to whilst reading this.

Finally, and also courtesy of RTÉ, here's a look at some of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland's players ...