Focus
Live Reviews: Anail Dé
Gavin Bryars (double bass), Iarla Ó Lionáird (voice), Leo Abrahams (guitar), Lisa Grosman (viola), Cian Ó Dúill (viola), Kate Ellis (cello)Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin, 14 November 2008.
Live Reviews: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival: James Tenney Retrospective
Quatuor Bozzini; Rick Sacks (percussion), Eve Egoyan (piano), Miriam Shalinsky (double bass), local instrumentalists / Huddersfield, Yorkshire 24–26 November 2008
Live Reviews: Crash Ensemble: Free State III / World View UK
Crash Ensemble, Darragh Morgan (violin), Alan Pierson (conductor), O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin 27–28 November 2008
Maggie Murphy
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. Photo © Ken Garland, courtesy Ken Garland & Irish Traditional Music Archive.
Q&A: Ciarán Ó Maonaigh
Ciarán Ó Maonaigh is a fiddle player from Gaoth Dobhair, County Donegal. A grandson of Proinsias Ó Maonaigh (a.k.a. Francie Mooney), he was the 2003 TG4 Young Traditional Musician of the Year. This year he released the album Fidil together with Aidan O’Donnell. Fidil is also the name of his group with O’Donnell and Damien McGeehan. The group is this year’s recipient of the Music Network Young Musicwide Award.
The Long Now
Our society lives on a short fuse. The current economic turmoil and the cuts in arts funding demonstrate the lack of a long-term perspective. Michael Cronin asks how our society can escape the tyranny of the moment.
The Art of the Possible
It is possible now to do almost anything to Irish traditional music. Whether one should is open to debate.