In 1951, the first ever Wexford Opera Festival (now known as 'Wexford Festival Opera') took place in a small town in the southeast corner of Ireland. What started out as an informal gathering of friends listening to gramophone music, developed into one of Europe's leading classical music events. T.J. Walsh, a medical doctor by profession and an amateur musician, was the man whose novel idea it was to start an opera festival from such humble beginnings. This book traces the history of the Festival, from its establishment up to the present day.

In 1951, the first ever Wexford Opera Festival (now known as 'Wexford Festival Opera') took place in a small town in the southeast corner of Ireland. What started out as an informal gathering of friends listening to gramophone music, developed into one of Europe's leading classical music events. T.J. Walsh, a medical doctor by profession and an amateur musician, was the man whose novel idea it was to start an opera festival from such humble beginnings.This book traces the history of the Festival, from its establishment up to the present day. The uneasy shift from amateur status to becoming a more professional body characterised much of the early life of the Festival. The book looks at the spectacular success of what T.J. Walsh had achieved and follows the story through the difficult period in the 1960s when Walsh felt that the Festival was taking a different direction than had been intended from its inception. He never fully reconciled with the new regime and bowed out to leave way for the growing professional outfit. This difficult transition continued throughout the seventies and into an even more difficult financial period in the 1980s. The core focus however remained on producing an impossibly high standard of opera. The next chapter in the Festival's incredible journey saw the replacement of the original Theatre Royal with a purpose built, state-of-the-art opera house, now Ireland's National Opera House.Wexford Festival Opera remains a truly unique cultural event. That it has managed to survive so many significant challenges over 70 years and continued to flourish is a testament to the incredible efforts of those at the helm and the spirit of resilience that is synonymous with the Wexford community. The History of the Wexford Opera Festival, 1951-2021 has been written for those who have enjoyed Wexford Festival Opera over many years, travelling from all over the world because of their love of little-known operas, the standard of Wexford's Festival repertoire and the unique welcome and atmosphere that is synonymous with Wexford at Festival time.

Modern Theatres 1950–2020 is an investigation of theatres, concert halls and opera houses in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North and South America. The book explores in detail 30 of the most significant theatres, concert halls, opera houses and dance spaces that opened between 1950 and 2010. Each theatre is reviewed and assessed by experts in theatre buildings, such as architects, acousticians, consultants and theatre practitioners, and illustrated with full-colour photographs and comparative plans and sections. A further 20 theatres that opened from 2009 to 2020 are concisely reviewed and illustrated. An excellent resource for students of theatre planning, theatre architecture and architectural design, Modern Theatres 1950 – 2020 discusses the role of performing arts buildings in cities, explores their public and performances spaces and examines the acoustics and technologies needed in a great building. This beautifully illustrated book is also a must-read for architects, theater designers, theatre historians, and theatre practitioners.

"Jann Pasler's remarkable Composing the Citizen reaches well beyond what any book concerned with music in society has ever attempted. Concentrating on France of the Third Republic, from the 1870s through the early 1900s, she demonstrates convincingly how music--whether new, old, popular, or élite, whether performed at institutions of state (such as the Opéra), the Folies Bergère, concert halls, or the zoo--helped to redefine what it meant to be French under evolving political circumstances. Equally adept in the languages of history, sociology, political science, reception history, and music analysis, Pasler establishes music's cultural significance and implicitly illuminates the role it can still play in countries like the United States."--Philip Gossett, The University of Chicago and University of Rome, La Sapienza "Composing the Citizen offers nothing less than a new paradigm for the study of musical cultures. Rather than forcing French music into the moulds developed for the Austro-German canon, Pasler simply studies the social uses of music in fin-de-siècle France. Her painstaking archival research allows her to present an astonishingly detailed account of musical practices, tastes, and activities; new names and genres come to the fore to engage in a variety of dynamic artistic scenes most of us never knew--or only thought we did by virtue of having read Proust. A masterwork of a scholar at the very peak of her career."--Susan McClary, MacArthur Fellow 1995 and author of Georges Bizet: Carmen and Modal Subjectivities: Self-Fashioning in the Italian Madgrigal "Utilité publique: a common-sense republican notion of sweeping consequence. In this greatly anticipated volume Jann Pasler uses it as touchstone, showing how and why musical life so mattered in Third-Republic France: layer after layer of it, in a journey that takes us past the Opéra and Conservatoire to the pops concerts, department stores, the zoo, the world's fairs, the overseas colonies. Companionable as a well-worn Baedeker, seductive as Roger Shattuck's The Banquet Years, this exquisitely styled and paced achievement is also a compelling read."--D. Kern Holoman, author of Berlioz and The Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, 1828-1967

What the Doctor ordered

A wealth of information on the wildlife, stories and history of the islands.For those wishing to visit in small boats or kayaks there are details of:? Landings? Camping? Drinking water? Tidal informationOileain is a detailed guide to almost every Irish offshore island. The guide is comprehensive, describing over 300 islands, big and small, far out to sea and close in by the shore, inhabited and uninhabited. Oileain tells it as it is, rock by rock, good and bad, pleasant and otherwise. It concentrates on landings and access generally, then adds information on camping, drinking water, tides, history, climbing, birds, whales, dolphins, legends or anything else of interest.Oileain will, I hope, appeal to all who go to sea in small boats, divers and yachtsmen as well as kayakers. The sheer level of detail contained in Oileain must surely throw new light on places they thought they knew well. It is not a book about kayaking. It so happens that a practical way of getting to islands is by kayak, and that is how the author gets about. Scuba divers and RIBs get in close too. Yachtsmen get about better than most, and they too enjoy exploring intensively from a dinghy. With the increasing availability of ferries, boatless people will also enjoy Oileain. Offshore islands are the last wilderness in Ireland. Hillwaking is now so popular that there are few untrampled mainland hills. Ninety per cent of offshore islands are uninhabited outside of the first fortnight in August, and eighty per cent even then. You won't meet many other people, if any at all, out beyond an Irish surf line. It is a time of change though, and holiday homes are very much the coming thing in some offshore areas. Sea going will never stop being a great adventure. Therefore, offshore islands are still the preserve of the very few. Now is a golden era for exploration.