Ireland’s Wexford Opera Festival has anounced that it will contract with a low-cost Eastern European orchestra to play in its pit this year, snubbing the country’s own National Symphony Orchestra, but saving €150,000. “Irish musicians have accused Wexford of using cheap labour, and will picket the festival again this October in protest. The Arts Council has expressed its ‘serious concern’ at the festival’s failure to nurture Irish artists, and has made it a condition of future funding that the festival ‘respond with vigour to its concerns’.”