The American music writer Alex Ross, author of the bestselling book The Rest is Noise, will give a lecture at the Aula Maxima, NUI Galway on 28 July at 3.30pm. The lecture, titled ‘Pale Vampire: Wagner’s Influence on Joyce’ is being presented as part of the Galway Arts Festival.

Joyce is said to have immersed himself in the music of Wagner during his youth. Ross will consider the influence of the composer on Joyce’s work, and will discuss ‘the complex fate of Wagner in the modern world’. 

Ross, who has been the classical music critic for the New Yorker magazine since 1996, has been documenting his trip to Ireland on his blog. Recent posts include a photograph of Dublin’s Sandymount Strand as well as posts about the Tower Records’ classical music department. ‘Magically, there is still a Tower Records on Wicklow Street in Dublin, with a sizeable classical section upstairs,’ he writes. ‘Schnabel and Schnittke, though no Schnebel.’

galwayartsfestival.com