Four decades of Donegal life in the accidental archive of Donegal News photographer, Declan Doherty.By RTÉ lyric fm

Jennifer Walshe on 1960s Manhattan's other definition of minimalism, and its chief exponent; Parisian patisseries put away the butter for a kinder croissant; an accidental photo-history of Donegal; and a very specific definition of "quiet" via Cork's Quiet Music Ensemble.By RTÉ lyric fm

Northern Irish audiovisual artist, Stephen McLaughin, aka An Trinse, shares some of his favourites in watching, listening, reading, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

The rich, complicated legacy of late pioneering musician and artist, Tony Conrad, seen through the eyes of his champion and former collaborator, Jennifer Walshe. (An extended version of this program airs August 3rd in the Culture File Weekly)By RTÉ lyric fm

John Godfrey of Cork's Quiet Music Ensemble on the group's philosophy of Quiet music.By RTÉ lyric fm

Along the boulevards, a revolution is marching, as a wave of French bakers learn to soar with plant-based croissants and other 21st century delights.By RTÉ lyric fm

A cooling sip from a holy well in Dublin's Phoenix Park, served up by artist Carmen Quigley; Jennifer Walshe on what the music industry is misunderstanding about generative AI; Orit Gat on everything the artist knows about the family; and E The Artist's escape from the terrors of quantization.By RTÉ lyric fm

Soprano and Irish Baroque Orchestra collaborator, Rachel Redmond on a few of her favorites in watching, reading, listening, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

Irish-Yoruba sound and visual artist, Doranijoh Sanna, a.k.a. E The Artist, on his new collaboration with contemporary music innovators, Crash Ensemble.By RTÉ lyric fm

Orit Gat's art summer brings her to the Kunstmuseum in the Swiss town of St Gallen, for Burning Down The House, an exhibition exploring ideas of family.By RTÉ lyric fm

Artist Carmen Quigley is finding new meanings—and fresh water—in some of Ireland's ancient holy wells.By RTÉ lyric fm

BBL Drizzy: A current court case pits the record industry against AI music firms. But does the skirmish overlook something crucial, asks Jennifer Walshe?By RTÉ lyric fm

The flickers and flourishes that make Irish music sounds special, with composer Dave Flynn; the sound of a bell that can't be heard inspires a new piece Tadhg O'Sullivan; and Rachel Redmond on re-activating the repertoire of Rachel Baptist, one of the stars of a good night out in 1750s Ireland.By RTÉ lyric fm

Vocalist and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart member, Andreas Fischer on a few of his favourite things, in watching, reading, listening, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

The sound of a bell that isn't there, inspires Tadhg O'Sullivan's latest journey into the mystic.By RTÉ lyric fm

Rachel Baptist, a Black Irish soprano, who drew crowds in 18th century Ireland singing Handel, Purcell and other hits of the time, "returns" to the concert stage with the help of soprano, Rachel Redmond and Irish Baroque Orchestra.By RTÉ lyric fm

Composer and guitarist, Dave Flynn on the techniques and tendencies that give Irish trad its uniqueness. (Part 2)By RTÉ lyric fm

Composer and guitarist, Dave Flynn on the techniques and tendencies that give Irish music its uniqueness. (Part 1)By RTÉ lyric fm

Organist, conductor and musicologist, Geoffrey Webber on some of his favourite things in watching, reading, listening, tasting and smellingBy RTÉ lyric fm

Ronan O'Snodaigh's stage show this year had a surprise inclusion: an epic recitation of When Peace Broke Out In The Garden, his extended allegory of competition and cohabitation, played out in a wild Irish field.By RTÉ lyric fm

Icelandic poet and short story writer, Fríða Ísberg's debut novel imagines her homeland convulsed by a new test to measure empathy.By RTÉ lyric fm

AI & Relational Art: How is AI like a 1990s art movement?By RTÉ lyric fm

Orit Gat makes a journey by train, and in her mind, to the seaside, to encounter artist duo Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen’s exhibition, Daughter of A Dog.By RTÉ lyric fm

Naturalist, Negin Almassi of Illinois' Singing Insects Monitoring Program shares some of her favourites in watching, reading, listening, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

The double emergence (for the first time in more than 200 years) of periodical cicada Broods XIX and XIII inspired a band of sound recordists, musicians, poets, composers, entomologists and environmentalists to gather beneath the trees in Illinois this June to listen, record and improvise with a trillion piece orchestra of singing critters.…

Instigator of the cicada safari, Irish composer and improviser Karen Power de-composes the musical ingredients of the insects' marvellous call. (Part 4)By RTÉ lyric fm

Some questions about cicadas answered; some questions for cicadas posed. (Part 3)By RTÉ lyric fm

To celebrate a rare emergence of two broods of periodical cicadas together, Orkin, a US pest control company commissioned a musical work from Bryan Rheude to be performed in the woods to the critters, in what they called "a trillion piece performance 221 years in the making". (Part 2)By RTÉ lyric fm

A sound not heard for more than two centuries was screeched into the Illinois sunshine this month, as two broods of periodical cicadas emerged together from their respective 13-year and 17-year stays underground. (Part 1)By RTÉ lyric fm

Emmy-nominated composer of a Cicada Symphony, Bryan Rheude shares some of his favourite things in watching, reading, listening, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

Norwegian composer Kristine Tjøgersen in her fish-forward orchestral work, Pelagic Dreamscape; the first man to be arrested, wrongly, with the help of AI-enabled policing; an artist-led wiff-waff pow-wow at Cork Midsummer; and organist and scholar Geoffrey Webber on the restored 19th century organ at Sandford church as part of Pipeworks Festival.…

Pipeworks festival visitor, organist and music scholar Geoffrey Webber, gets to know the 19th century instrument in Sandford Church in Ranelagh.By RTÉ lyric fm

The National Novelty Ping Pong Table Collection's visit to Cork Midsummer involves a wiff-waff showdown for artists, as well as a Cruinniú na nÓg tournament.By RTÉ lyric fm

Norwegian composer, Kristine Tjøgersen on finding ways to remake the sounds of orcas, kittiwakes, gillemotes, haddock and power boats with orchestral instruments.By RTÉ lyric fm

Robert Williams holds the unpleasant distinction of being the first person ever arrested with the help of AI-powered policing.By RTÉ lyric fm

Icelandic poet and novelist, Fríða Ísberg on some of her favourites in watching, reading, listening, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

Paddy Woodworth re-litigates whether Kropotkin was a crackpot in The Naturalist's Bookshelf; Tadhg O'Sullivan floats in with his Cloud of Unknowing; Jennifer Walshe's Things Know Things follows the electronic trail of a neighbourhood cat; and the voices behind a performance of Stockhausen's Stimmung on the composer's baby his cosmic vocal workout.…

Tadhg O'Sullivan on the worth and the weight of a once-loved set of encyclopediae.By RTÉ lyric fm

Paddy Woodworth latest choice for addition to our shelf of ideal nature books suggests Stephen Jay Goolde 1988 essay on Russian noble-turned anarchist, Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin.By RTÉ lyric fm

Andreas Fisher and Guillermo Anzorena of Neue Vocal Solisten on working with Karlheinz Stockhausen on the composer's epic of vocal improvisation, Stimmung, which they'll perform at the Lovely Music festival in Dundalk this weekend.By RTÉ lyric fm

The Neighbourhood C(h)at: Even the cutest, friendliest of pets cannot escape the reaches of surveillance capitalism.By RTÉ lyric fm

New York-born, Dublin-based photographer, Ishmael Claxton on a few of his favourite things in watching, listening, reading, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

An audio postcard from the audio idyll of Sherkin Island; drawing as resistance in the attention economy at a Dublin workshop; and an update from the trouser front line.By RTÉ lyric fm

Audio experiments in genres too numerous (and possibly too unstable) to mention filled the air on Sherkin Island this past June Holiday Weekend at the Open Ear Festival.By RTÉ lyric fm

Can drawing help resist the over-exploitation of our valuable human attention? Renata Pekowska, who runs drawing workshops with an aim to do just that, thinks maybe it can.By RTÉ lyric fm

Are your trousers too skinny right now? Or too wide? Is it ever possible to wear the right sort? Joanna Walsh on the mercurial discourse of pants.By RTÉ lyric fm

In preparation for our extended musical journey into his Irish trad version of In C (RTÉ lyric fm, 6pm, Saturday June 1st) one of our guides for that program, Dónal Lunny shares again some of his favourites in watching, listening, reading, tasting and smelling.By RTÉ lyric fm

An extended musical journey into Irish-American composer, Terry Riley's radical masterpiece, In C, guided by members of the Irish supergroup behind the first Trad version of his pioneering work of Minimalist magic. Featuring Zoë Conway, Donal Lunny, Máirtín O'Connor, Paddy Glackin, Mick O'Brien, Louise Mulcahy, and Michelle Mulcahy.…

An introduction to the first Irish Trad performance of In C at Louth Contemporary Music Society by a trad super-group, including Zoe Conway, Donal Lunny, Mairtin O'Connor and friends. Tune in to RTÉ lyric fm on Saturday June 1st, 6pm for an extended remix of Culture File's celebration of this historical In C seisiún.…

Cellist Maja Bugge's preparation for creating her Suite for Seabirds involved time on a remote Norwegian island, collecting the sounds of Sea Eagles, Black Guillemots and other disappearing calls.By RTÉ lyric fm