Brian Irvine has just been announced as the first ever Belfast music laureate.

I don’t know the composer’s classical side at all but his jazz side, a big part of the avant gardist’s early career is really on the button, like Django Bates-meets-Henry Threadgill with a dash of Zappa thrown in as a kind of sonic condiment. Bersudsky’s Machines was a real tonic when it came out, and live there’s so much energy and anarchy to his ensembles often rocking with an Ayler-esque wildness. Irvine’s new role involves undertaking “a series of artistic duties and activities” over the coming year. SG 

Ciaran Scullion head of music at Arts Council NI, above left, Councillor Nichola Mallon, Lord Mayor of Belfast, and Brian Irvine outside the Ulster Hall photo: ACNI