IrishMusicInfo
The Sunday Tribune Weekly Traditional Music Column by Fintan Vallely
990411
Just over a hundred years ago uilleann piper Patsy Touhey played at the WorldÕs Fair in Chicago. There he saw the Ediphone cylinder recorder in action, and soon he was making and marketing his own one-off recordings for a dollar each, to be chosen from a catalogue of a hundred and fifty pieces. Promotion of recordings was central too to the second From the Heart festival at the Barbican Centre in London, a major culture/tourism 'expo' for Irish music. The five-day block of mostly music presented the top Irish players and bands in a festival atmosphere of great ease and comfort in a prestige, multi-venue base. The layered complexity and vast, acoustically-live public space of the purpose-built Barbican reminds that the 'palace of culture' idea of Europe's former socialist nations is the model for generating agenda-free public interest, participation and pride in the arts. The muffled, china-cabinet formality of our own national concert hall is hardly a competitor. Begun in 1997, 'From the Heart' music this year is the choice of Philip King, John Dunford and Nuala O'Connor. It mixed education and entertainment, presenting also thirty five workshops in music song, dance and storytelling, and five illustrated talks on aspects of music in Irish life that included Seamus Ennis, sean n—s dance, Protestant perception, the London Irish, and Ciar‡n Carson's Last Night's Fun. Len Graham and John Campbell, set dancer Mary Fox and the Armagh Rhymers mumming group lent a,Northern' emphasis. The phalanx of popular and successful 'stars' covered conservative and avant garde tastes - Liam O'Flynn, Arty McGlynn, MairŽad N’ Mhaonaigh, Cathal Hayden, Michael McGoldrick, Sean Keane, M‡ire N’ Chathasaigh, Maighread and Tr’ona N’ Dhomhnail, çine U’ Cheallaigh, Alan Kelly, John Spillane, Kieran Hanrahan, Ritchie Buckley, Tommy Makem, Davy Hammond, Desi Donnelly, Dermot Byrne, Iarla î Lion‡ird, the groups Bumblebees, Beginish, Lœnasa, Craobh Rua, Danu, Kila, Sin ƒ and M’che‡l î Sœilleabh‡in with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Seamus Heaney stamped intelledtual legitimacy, Jean Ritchie was celebrated as collector, Kevin McAleer, D'Unbelievables and The Nualas spiced it all with the crack. In a mix of thronged foyer events, intimate, cheery conference spaces and big stages, this was participation by consumption. The twenty years since the Sense of Ireland festival have not been idle. From the Heart's promotion of Ireland was low on shamrockery and high in artistic integrity. As a tourism promoter it is no doubt important, but as an end-of-century mark in the sand it indicates a considerable achievement of self-identity and sophisticated artistic awareness of and for an indigenous music - a long way from Patsy Touhey as curio. But spectacularly celebratting that piper's adopted city's Irish music ethos, the meticulously-researched, multi-million pound, mind-blowing, high-tech Ceol centre at the Chief O'Neill project in Dublin's Smithfield will be launched on Wednesday next.
©Fintan Vallely, IrishMusicInfo.com
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