Latest Issue

After Franco

Kasongo Musanga

February/March 2010

From the 1950s until the 1980s, Franco Luambo Makiadi and his TPOK Jazz orchestra profoundly shaped the sound of African music across the continent, and subsequently the popular music of the world through artists such as Paul Simon and Talking Heads. Yet Franco is little known outside Africa and his 1,000 compositions are hardly represented on recordings. Now just over twenty years since Franco’s death in 1989, Kasongo Musanga tells the story of ‘The Sorcerer of the Guitar’, from whose shadow Congolese music is still emerging.

The Master

Tony MacMahon

February/March 2010

'To have crossed his path as a listener was enriching; to have had him as a mentor was unforgettable,' writes Tony MacMahon of the uilleann piper Séamus Ennis. In New York and Dublin in the 1960s, MacMahon lived with, played with and learned from Ennis, and here he recalls some of the rituals and skills of the artist that made him unique.

The Musical Priest

Ciaran Carson

February/March 2010

He was a cantankerous eccentric who stressed that the Irish language and music were inseparable. Richard Henebry should not be forgotten, writes Ciaran Carson

The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson

Peter Rosser

February/March 2010

The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson, Edited by Mark Fisher, Zero Books, Hampshire, England  

Rethinking Opera

Christopher Fox

February/March 2010

If we want new opera to relate to our twenty-first century experience, we must return to first principles, says Christopher Fox

Don’t Upset the Rhythm

Matthew Jordan

February/March 2010

Innovative music is seen as a moral threat

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