Barra Ó Séaghdha reviews Faking it, which explores the divide between artist and performance.

In a new series of columns, Toner Quinn looks at contemporary issues in traditional music.

Bob Gilmore interviews leading young composer Linda Buckley who divides her time between Berlin and Dublin.

Benedict Schlepper-Connolly gives an insider’s view of the Irish Composers’ Collective.

Is Irish-language song in a western pop music ghetto? It needs a much broader musical context, writes Breandán Ó hEaghra

Peter Rosser looks at a new model for music production hatching in Northern Ireland.

Ciaran Carson on the ideal space for playing traditional music.

Kevin Stevens meets two new collectives in the Irish jazz scene.

JMI talks to violinist and violist Cora Venus Lunny.

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

Islands Tour; The Reel Deal; The West Awake; Free State IV; Globalising Irish Music – Podcast by Bill Whelan; DEAF; Creative Spaces; Béal Tuinne and Conal Ó Gráda at the Cork Folk Festival; Eliza Carthy in Enniskillen; Seán Ó Riada Memorial

Improvements in music education are down to political will

Continued from JMI July–August 2008Works Received, June– July 2008Bennett, Ed, Fourth Layer Tension [1999], hrp fl ob cl bn hn. Byers, David, A Full Moon [2008], pf. A New Moon [2008], pf.Caffrey, Greg, Ett Mobilt Hem [2006–2008], fl bcl...

Continued from JMI July–August 2008CDS PUBLISHED 2006–2008Boyle, Kathleen, piano accordion, singing in English & Irish, An Cailín Rua (The Red-Haired Girl), Boyle KTR001CD, 2008Brunel, Frank, & Vincent Rosinach, flute & fiddle,.

One aim of the Young Composers’ Collective (now the Irish Composers’ Collective) since its founding in 2003 is to provide young Irish composers with the opportunity to hear their works professionally performed, a goal realised over two conc

Bridgewood Ensemble: Leonie Curtin (violin), Joanne Quigley (violin) Cora Venus Lunny (viola), Kate Ellis (cello)SS Michael & John, Dublin26 June 2008This concert, the second of three the Spatial Music Collective has programmed for 2008

Benjamin Dwyer, (guitar)Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin8 June 2008Despite the supreme efforts of Chopin and Ligeti, the term ‘étude’ may still put the reader in mind of the Czerny and Hanon piano exercises that have, since their inception,...

National Chamber Choir, Paul Hillier (conductor)Harty Room, Queen’s University, Belfast11 June 2008Faced routinely with the deepest sentiments, sacred and profane, where do singers position themselves emotionally?

Grand Canal Dock, Dublin18–20 July 2008Ports are multicultural. They are where the riches of the world arrive and dissipate.

Tony MacMahon (accordion), David Power (uilleann pipes, whistle, fiddle, vocals), Dermot Bolger (poetry); Directed by John Comiskey, Produced by David Teevan/Ten42 ProductionsTradition:DL Festival, Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co.

40th Anniversary AlbumWKPFCD002 The Armagh Pipers Club, founded in 1966, is one of the great modern institutions of the Irish traditional music world.

Odd SetDiatribe Recordings DIACD002For pointers, geographical as well as musical, to the where, what, why and how of Yurodny, take yourself to its MySpace page and scroll down to see who has signed up as a friend of the ever-changing Dublin

FidilFid001CDContext matters in Donegal.

TundraLimb from Limb Records LFL 001Ian Wilson is surely one of the busiest of Irish composers at the moment – and one of the most diverse and wide-ranging.

Nil gar ann! – Traditional Fiddle Music from Donegal – Played by Frank Cassidy (and in duet with John Doherty)Cairdeas na bhFídléirí CNF005This CD of a legendary fiddler is part of a modern obsession with historical recordings...

The Connemara SuiteCloonisle Records TARACD 4021In the last issue of JMI, Bill Whelan spoke candidly about the vertiginous experience of finding himself at the centre of Riverdance, the interval-filling distraction turned international phen

CascadeImprovised Music Company The release of Cascade is an important event, not just because of the quality of the music, which I’ll get to in a moment, but also for the circumstances of its origin and production.

Ronnie Drew (right), Luke Kelly (seated), Ciarán Burke, & Barney McKenna on the cover of the first of some fifty original long-playing records (and hundreds of reissues) by the Dubliners group, Transatlantic TRA 116, issued 1964.

John McLachlan asks if we have what it takes to develop a thriving contemporary music scene.