Bray Jazz Festival 4th - 6th May

The 13th annual Bray Jazz Festival is on over the long weekend with an array of different Jazz events, both free and not free, in several different venues around the town.

The headline acts for each night in the Mermaid Arts Centre have impressive pedigrees.  The Tord Gustavsen Trio are on Friday night.  Susana Baca, Peruvian Grammy winner and former minister for culture, plays Saturday night (though I hear this is sold out) and Don Byron's Gospel Quintet play on Sunday.

If you are attending the festival, two important travel factors occur:

There's no rail service between Connolly and Malahide/Howth this weekend.  A terrible time to schedule upgrade works.  People might want to use the train to do, I dunno, day trips.  Not much help to local businesses, never mind the Jazz festival.

ETA: Irish Rail has just announced they are postponing the works and there will be a full rail service as usual after all.  Well done for having the sense to change it.

In better news, there is a local nightlink service running twice nightly during the festival from Bray into town at a very reasonable cost.  Further details are on their website.

I'll be talking to George Jacob, the Festival director, on Artbeat tonight at  20:00 on Dublin City FM.

In brief

Bray Summerfest begins next week on Wednesday 14th July and runs for about six weeks.

The Irish Architecture Foundation must be well organised; they already have an initial flyer printed for the 2010 Open House Dublin event (running 7th - 10th October). Keep an eye on this - last year's event was one of the highlights of the year.

And more immediately: if you're going to be around Temple Bar for the Summer Sensational, I'd strongly recommend the free Drama classes being run by the Gaiety School of Acting in the Culture Box on East Essex Street. Booking in advance is required.