The Waterford Imagine Arts Festival starts this week including ten music events held across the city. Opening the festival on 17 October, at the recently opened Medieval Museum, is Kaleidoscope, an eclectic music night normally held in Dublin every month, but which has been touring the country throughout the summer.

The programme has a focus on Waterford itself, with highlights including the sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird with songs inspired by Waterford, and early music group the Gregory Walkers with medieval airs and dances on themes of the city.

Dooley’s Hotel host Sligo traditional music band Dervish on 19 October. The band, which combines Brian McDonagh (mandola), Liam Kelly (flute and whistles), Tom Morrow (fiddle), Shane Mitchell (accordion), Cathy Jordan (vocals, bodhrán and bones) and Michael Holmes (Bouzouki), will have just completed a tour of the UK and will be heading to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy in November and December. Jordan recently completed a skydive to raise money for an animal rescue charity.

The English folk singer Chris Wood will give a rare Irish performance at Dooley’s Hotel on 22 October. Writing in these pages in March 2006, Wood wrote that the English folk music scene was in ‘a ghetto of its own making’. The scene ‘does not encourage work which challenges its thinking … and nor is it in a position to insist on strict adherence to traditional style bearing’ wrote Wood. Wood’s latest album None the Wiser was released earlier this year.

The festival, which runs for ten days until 27 October, is run by a group of volunteers and is now in its eleventh year.