You had me at cello. This new international festival features more than 25 concerts across Galway city and county with more than 500 people taking part in a wide-ranging series of events that includes a cryptic cello trail on Inishbofin Island. An integral element of the festival, meanwhile , is “to increase empathy in all of us towards two burning issues of our time: climate change and migration”. Irish artists performing include Finghin Collins, Hugh Tinney, Eimear Noone and Claudia Boyle.
There are, however, loads of free gigs taking place in other venues, where the likes of Dabilla, Clumsy Maggie, Whiskey Still, Ispíní na hÉireann and the smartly named Saltaire will deliver the tunes. Full details are on the festival website.Watching amateurs learn to act in a bare, multi-use room in a community centre is the central focus of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Barker’s 2009 work.