Linenhall Celebrates Local Music Making
The Music Makers project, based in Mayo, celebrates, in a very full sense, the making of music, starting with the instruments themselves.
Aware of the number of renowned instrument makers that were operating in the county, the Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, came up with a neat idea to celebrate them. Film-maker Myles O’Reilly was commissioned to document the work of violin-maker Graham Wright, bow-maker Gary Leahy, mandolin- and guitar-maker Brian Lofthouse, and uilleann pipes-maker John Butler.
The resulting instruments were then put into the hands of four Mayo-based traditional musicians, Julie Langan (fiddle), Finbarr Naughton (fiddle, mandolin), maker Brian Lofthouse (guitar, mandolin) and maker John Butler (uilleann pipes), and on 10 November, in a unique event in the Linenhall’s theatre space, there will be a screening of O’Reilly’s footage and a performance by the musicians, not in a soundtrack relationship, but with different kinds of inter-weaving of music and image.
Producer and Linenhall Arts Access Officer Orla Henihan hopes that the audience will identify a resonance between the filing, planing, bending, stretching and glueing of the craft and the bowing, plucking, strumming, fingering and bellowing of the playing.
The screening will be followed by a question and answer session with the participants.
The Music Makers was developed with the support of an Arts Council DEIS award.
Published on 27 October 2011