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.
Toner Quinn
RTÉ Lyric FM is in the news because of its schedule changes, but the strength of the response is a positive thing.
Ensemble Ériu, a group that combines traditional, jazz and contemporary music, recently toured their new six-part suite 'Stargazer'. Toner Quinn attended the opening performance in Galway.
The world of the professional traditional musician appears to be contracting, writes Toner Quinn.
Far from 'anything goes', programming a festival of experimental music may be the most difficult type of all. With a new artistic director, the Borealis festival in Bergen, Norway, seized the challenge, writes Toner Quinn.
The next steps for the Irish music industry require 'strong leadership', says a new report, but where will it come from?
Benjamin Dwyer’s new book asks hard questions about Irish musical life.
The feverishness around the idea of the ‘start-up’ is remarkable, and artists could learn a lot from it.
Musical life is more complex than it appears online.
An upcoming festival of music and song in Conamara is about the past and the future.
In the world of music the printed word holds a great deal of power, writes Toner Quinn, and it should not be underestimated.
Is increased audience participation the great musical trend of our time?
Reflecting on the diversity and intensity of musical life.
In the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland, visitors are sometimes frustrated because they speak Irish to locals and are responded to in English. It doesn’t take long for them to give up altogether, deciding that the language is actually truly dead in the...
Funding for the arts is essential, but without the right approach it can blunt artists’ entrepreneurial skills, writes Toner Quinn
A new generation of musicians and singers is pulling the English folk scene alongside its Irish and Scottish neighbours, pointing to a new era of collaboration – and perhaps even the healing of old wounds, writes Toner Quinn
The direct impact the new digital culture is having on music, in terms of access, dissemination and copyright, is well documented, but the indirect impact less so. If, as Benedict Schlepper-Connolly suggests, digital platforms will transform the status of...
‘I mbliana ní raibh aon urraíocht ar fáil faraor, leis an tseachtain ealaíne is oidhreachta a reachtáil mar a bhíonns againn go hiondúil.’ Or, in English: ‘Unfortunately, no sponsorship was...
The search for a sustainable business model for the producing and selling of music in the digital age persists, but it is crippled by a narrow view of the internet. Presenting this technology as either a threat to income, due to its ability to copy content...
For nine years, I have been poised as a magazine publisher, ready to leap into the virtual world entirely. From about 2006, I was expecting it every month. It has yet to happen. Earlier this year I witnessed another magazine, not unlike ours – one that...
