May/June 2006

Live Reviews: Caoimhín Ó Raghaillaigh, with Jane Hughes and Lorcan Mac Mathuna

Live Reviews: Caoimhín Ó Raghaillaigh, with Jane Hughes and Lorcan Mac Mathuna

St Brendan’s Church, Bantry, 17 March 2006Outside the confines of the Church of St Brendan the Navigator in Bantry, the populace celebrated the National Feast with the customary mixture of ballads and booze.

Published on 1 May 2006

Pat Ahern is a musician and producer. He lectures in mathematics at Cork Institute of Technology.

Vocal Musics of the Past

Vocal Musics of the Past

Vocal Musics of the Past

A review of Breandán Ó Madagáin's Caointe agus Seancheolta Eile: Keening and other Old Irish Music.

Published on 1 May 2006

Tom Munnelly (1944-2007), born in Dublin but resident in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, since 1978, made the largest field-collection of Irish traditional song ever compiled by any individual. After recording privately in the 1960s, and collecting especially from Traveller singers, he became a professional folklore collector and archivist with the Department of Irish Folklore, University College Dublin (now the UCD Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore and the National Folklore Collection), from 1974 to date, with a concentration on English-language song. He lectured and taught widely, was a leading activist in many folk music organisations and festivals, including the Folk Music Society of Ireland, the Willie Clancy Summer School and the Clare Festival of Traditional Singing, and he served on national bodies such as the Arts Council. He was the founding Chairman of the Irish Traditional Music Archive from 1987 to 1993. Recently he was presented with the festschrift Dear Far-Voiced Veteran: Essays in Honour of Tom Munnelly, and was made an honorary Doctor of Literature by the National University of Ireland Galway.

Drawing of John Loughran (1927–87) by Eamonn O'Doherty

Drawing of John Loughran (1927–87) by Eamonn O'Doherty

Drawing of John Loughran (1927–87) by Eamonn O'Doherty

Drawing made 14 July 1977 by artist Eamonn O’Doherty of fiddle-player and raconteur John Loughran in his home in Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone – from the Irish Traditional Music Archive travelling exhibition ‘The Northern Fiddler’.

Published on 1 May 2006

Live Reviews: Michael Buckley's 'Translations'

Live Reviews: Michael Buckley's 'Translations'

Live Reviews: Michael Buckley's 'Translations'

Published on 1 May 2006

Toner Quinn is Editor of the Journal of Music. His new book, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, is available here. Toner will be giving a lecture exploring some of the ideas in the book on Saturday 11 May 2024 at 3pm at Farmleigh House in Dublin. For booking, visit https://bit.ly/3x2yCL8.

Purists All

Purists All

Purists All

Little captures the imagination like the idea of the ‘traditional music purist’ – though it’s a notion rife with inconsistencies.

Published on 1 May 2006

Toner Quinn is Editor of the Journal of Music. His new book, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, is available here. Toner will be giving a lecture exploring some of the ideas in the book on Saturday 11 May 2024 at 3pm at Farmleigh House in Dublin. For booking, visit https://bit.ly/3x2yCL8.

Live Reviews: Dublin Guitar Quartet

Live Reviews: Dublin Guitar Quartet

Lazybird (The International Bar), Dublin, 12 March 2006This gig served as an album launch for the Dublin Guitar Quartet’s debut album Deleted Pieces, which had just been released a couple of days beforehand on Greyslate Records, and attenda

Published on 1 May 2006

Paul Watts is a DJ, promoter and radio host. He lectures in theoretical physics at UCD.

Editorial: The Slow Horse

Editorial: The Slow Horse

The BBC Radio 4 Reith lectures by Daniel Barenboim.

Published on 1 May 2006

Toner Quinn is Editor of the Journal of Music. His new book, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, is available here. Toner will be giving a lecture exploring some of the ideas in the book on Saturday 11 May 2024 at 3pm at Farmleigh House in Dublin. For booking, visit https://bit.ly/3x2yCL8.

Missing Persons

Missing Persons

In the latest of an occasional series of articles featuring Irish composers, Bob Gilmore interviews Ailís Ní Riain from Cork, who is currently living in Manchester.

Published on 1 May 2006

Bob Gilmore (1961–2015) was a musicologist, educator and keyboard player. Born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, he studied at York University, Queen's University Belfast, and at the University of California. His books include Harry Partch: a biography (Yale University Press, 1998) and Ben Johnston: Maximum Clarity and other writings on music (University of Illinois Press, 2006), both of which were recipients of the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP. He wrote extensively on the American experimental tradition, microtonal music and spectral music, including the work of such figures as James Tenney, Horațiu Rădulescu, Claude Vivier, and Frank Denyer. Bob Gilmore taught at Queens University, Belfast, Dartington College of Arts, Brunel University in London, and was a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent. He was the founder, director and keyboard player of Trio Scordatura, an Amsterdam-based ensemble dedicated to the performance of microtonal music, and for the year 2014 was the Editor of Tempo, a quarterly journal of new music. His biography of French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was published by University of Rochester Press in June 2014. Between 2005 and 2012, Bob Gilmore published several articles in The Journal of Music.

'Don phobal as a dtáinig sé'

'Don phobal as a dtáinig sé'

At the Sean-Nós Cois Life festival in Dublin in April, UCD scholar Ríonach uí Ógáin was presented with Gradam Shean-Nós Cois Life – one of only two people who are not singers to ever recieve this award – for her enormous contribution to res

Published on 1 May 2006

Ciarán Ó Con Cheanainn (1981–2009) was a traditional singer from Saile Thúna, An Spidéal, in the Conamara Gaeltacht. He won Corn Uí Riada, the premier prize for sean-nós singing, at the Oireachtas in November 2008, the youngest ever singer to do so. He lectured in Modern Irish in UCD.

Letters: New GEM

Letters: New GEM

Desmond Fennell, Anguillara, Italy, writes:From Bob Gilmore’s article (JMI, January–February), I note that Steve Reich has written: ‘All music turns out to be ethnic music’. This reinforces what I said about ‘classical’...

Published on 1 May 2006

Notes

Notes

Proinsias Ó MaonaighThe late Proinsias Ó Maonaigh (Francie Mooney) – right – playing a brass fiddle, with his daughter, fiddle-player and singer Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh of Altan, and grandson fiddle-player Ciarán...

Published on 1 May 2006