Thanks from Georgia / Masters of Tradition CD

Traditional singer Maggie Murphy (second from left) at Slieve Gullion Festival of Traditional Singing, Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh, October 1993: from colour photo by Ken Garland, London.

Continued from JMI November–December 2008WORKS RECEIVED, OCTOBER–NOVEMBER 2008Agnew, Elaine, Hiccup [2008], 2 vn [baroque], G-violone, hpd.Bennett, Ed, Cartoon Music [2007], asax pf perc. Flickering (again) [2007], 4 perc, tape....

Continued from JMI November–December 2008CDS PUBLISHED 2008Barry, Margaret, banjo, singing in English, Queen of the Gypsies, Emerald EMCD8004.

Classical/EarlyCD Review – Andrew McGregor, Sat, 9am, www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/cdreview/Classical Collection – Sarah Walker, Mon–Fri, 10am, www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classicalcollectionComposer of the Week – Donal Macleod, Mon–Fri, 12pm,...

Crash Ensemble, Darragh Morgan (violin), Alan Pierson (conductor)O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin27–28 November 2008Now well over ten years old, the Crash Ensemble has become a fixture of the new music scene in Ireland.

Quatuor Bozzini; Rick Sacks (percussion), Eve Egoyan (piano), Miriam Shalinsky (double bass), local instrumentalistsHuddersfield, Yorkshire24–26 November 2008Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival’s James Tenney retrospective was the larg

The Cherry Tree, Dublin14 November 2008When two string players and what looked dangerously like a percussionist came out on stage at the Cherrytree in Walkinstown with the piper and the fiddler, I’ll admit I felt a little tremor of pessimis

Gavin Bryars (double bass), Iarla Ó Lionáird (voice), Leo Abrahams (guitar), Lisa Grosman (viola), Cian Ó Dúill (viola), Kate Ellis (cello)Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin14 November 2008Anáil Dé is an evening-length...

Alamire, Mikhail KarikisVarious venues, Sligo 1–2 November 2008For you, only you is a music project conceived by British artist Sonia Boyce.

RTÉ National Symphony orchestra, Gerhard Markson (conductor) NCH, Dublin, 31 October 2008Stephen Gardner is fifty this year, which is an anniversary worth celebrating, and RTÉ sensibly commissioned a substantial orchestral work to mark the

Un Bel Di…RTÉ lyric fm CD118This tribute to the County Mayo-born soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan has been released to mark the fiftieth anniversary of her death, although its appearance chimes poignantly with the death in September of the o

Turning the TuneCló Iar-Chonnachta CICD 166One of a select number of traditional composers whose corpus of tunes enjoys a wide currency among musicians, and a highly-respected fiddler and piano accompanist in his own right, Charlie Lennon’s

Breathing TimeDiatribe DIACD004 Since forming in Dublin four years ago, the lively, progressive quartet Trihornophone has been intriguing audiences with improvised music that is playful, open, and always fresh.

On learning traditional Irish music from outside Ireland

On the attractions of the cinematic canon

How do we recognise the real thing in traditional music?

How country music in America binds Ireland North and South

Kevin Stevens meets the innovative saxophonist David Murray

Unlocking the Archive / Session with the Pipers /Music Recording / Casadh Arís / Temple Bar Trad / Música Nueva de Mexico / Outof Time / New Books on Music in Ireland / Winteriser / Happy to Meet, Sorry toPart / Dublin Philharmonic in USA /

Sean Carpio plays drums ‘with friends and family’. He was a student and teacher in the Newpark Music Centre and studied Carnatic classical percussion in Bangalore, India.

In an extract from a memoir in progress, musician Tony MacMahon remembers moments of inspiration, captivation – and terror. Photos: Lucy Clarke

In 1996, for a speech given at the Crossroads Conference in Dublin, Tony MacMahon wrote the following: ‘Underlying the affection of a large section of the public for [traditional music and song] is a preconception – that apart from its ente

Various venues, Dublin23–26 October 2008Electronic noise: either you view it as an irritating addendum to the intended functions of analogue technologies, or you take your lead from today’s sound artists and technophiles and celebrate it as

Royal Festival Hall, London1 December 2008Euphoric applause greeted Keith Jarrett as he slowly ambled his way towards the spotlit Steinway.

Skins & SinsLyonsie Records NCLD001The life of a bodhrán player can be a lonely one: constantly searching for a musical partner; often maligned by instrumental prejudice; without session civil-rights; without much of a recorded history

Liquid SunshineLiving Room Project LRP 003The Hammond organ has a venerable jazz history.

Shakespeare’s vainglorious corpulent knight Falstaff has proved an irresistible lure to composers over the centuries. Salieri, Mozart, Elgar, Holst, Vaughan Williams and, most memorably, Verdi, have all set the...

No discussion of Lithuanian composers can avoid the political dimension

The first composition teacher of Charles Villiers Stanford, the ‘father’ of the renaissance in English classical music, came from Tralee.

'Access' is now a guiding principle across music and the arts, but what does it mean in practice?