IF it is indeed the case that the genre of classical music is on the periphery of the general cultural radar in this country, as many people believe it is, then it inevitably falls, in no trivial way, to Ireland's 'arts' festivals to illuminate and further the profile of the genre. At the very least, the arts festivals that reap and enjoy the benefits of government funding ought to be duty-bound in offering audiences classical music concerts and activities of a similar number and standard to other musical, theatrical and visual forms.

Kilkenny Arts Festival is usually commendable in its approach to the classical question. Galway Arts Festival, however, has never earned itself renown in this respect. Project '06 was a once-off alternative arts festival, which ran concurrent to the main event in the City of the Tribes last year. Its aim was to highlight the diminishing number of Galway-based artists and companies being included in the programme but it also succeeded in illuminating for many the lack of real musical exploration or innovation on the part of the longestablished festival (it has been running for 29 years).

Whether the 2007 Galway Arts Festival will prove to have addressed the larger issues raised by Project '06 is not for this writer to contemplate here but it is unfortunately and undeniably apparent that the flag of classical music will receive but a token hoisting yet again this year.

Allow me to shed a comparative light on my criticism. The festival in Galway is a 14-day event while Kilkenny's equivalent spans eight days. Yet only six classical music concerts are listed on the Galway programme, whereas Kilkenny can manage to include nine.

The histories and manifestos of the festivals differ, yes, and I am usually wont to find something to complain about in everything, yes, but as I have already said, the luxury of government funding should surely incur an equal duty to all facets of the arts, whether it is convenient or a departure from the norm or not.

That said, one of these six concerts in Galway would be the envy of any music festival in Ireland. UK cellist extraordinaire Steven Isserlis will give a performance at St Nicholas' Collegiate Church on the evening of 17 July. Isserlis is indisputably one of the most prominent and influential cellists and, perhaps, musical thinkers, of our day.

A fearless proponent of lesserknown or neglected works and contemporary music, his indefatigable musical spirit earned him a CBE in 1998. A sonata by English composer William Sterndale Bennett (1816-75), whom Schumann declared to be the most "musikalish" of all Englishmen, vies with Mendelssohn's 'Variations Concertante' for the main focus of the evening, which will be framed by four of Ignaz Moscheles' 10 transcriptions from Bach's 'Well-Tempered Clavier' for cello and piano, Chopin's cello sonata and a ballade by Isserlis himself.

Of further interest to classical music enthusiasts at Galway Arts Festival will be a concert by the Brodsky quartet and clarinetist Joan Enric Lluna in the same venue on 24 July. At the heart of the performance will be a work by English composer Paul Barker, inspired by the atrocities in Bosnia. 'In Memoriam: For Those Who Fall in Time of War' was premiered by the ensemble in 2005 and toured internationally since then.

University College Galway's artists-in-residence, the Con Tempo string quartet, complete the classical bill with a four-part series at the city's Augustinian church.

Those concerts (18, 20-22 July) will also showcase several special guests, such as the Dutch brass trio De Jongens Driest, UK pianist James Lisney, Japanese clarinetist Ryo Kondo, Irish accordionist Dermot Dunne and Irish-American composer/pianist Jane O'Leary, director of contemporary ensemble, Concorde and chairperson of Music for Galway.

I would not say the Tribesmen are spoilt for choice but there's a sparing amount of good spoiling available nonetheless.