IrishMusicInfo
The Sunday Tribune Weekly Traditional Music Column by Fintan Vallely
990815
Today the Fonn music summer school opens in Galway, on Sunday next the Fleadh Cheoil na hƒireann Scoil ƒigse opens at Enniscorthy, and on Tuesday the annual Aonach Paddy O'Brien gets underway at Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. Now one of the country's major festivals this event has moved gradually from being a commemoration of its hugely influential mentor - master of the B/C accordion style - to being a major celebration of Traditional music itself. This year it includes poetry, writing and drama workshops, recitations, and notably it involves the local Singers Circle which hosts brothers John and Tim Lyons. Instrumental tutors include top players Michelle O'Sullivan (concertina), Anne Conroy Burke (accordion), Geraldine Cotter (whistle), Marcas î Murchœ (flute), Seamus Connolly (fiddle) and Antaine î Farach‡in (sean-n—s song). Attempting to make sense of such a bazaar of activity, the newly-published book 'Crosbhealach an Cheoil - Tradition and Change' at long last makes available thirty two papers from the 1996 Dublin conference (£7 plus postage from Ossian, PO Box 84, Cork). These include keynote speakers Tony Mac Mahon and M’che‡l î Sœilleabh‡in, as well as such as Dermot McLaughlin (Arts Council of Ireland) and Martin Dowling (Arts Council of NI). McLaughlin addresses the responsibilities of the State's funding of the music - emphasising its policy of support for "the raw materials of this music" through workshop and master class, 'Artflight' grants and funding of such as the Traditional music archive. The less obvious commentators make this book a provocative read - notably Georgina Boyes, Margaret Bennett and Reg Hall. Author of 'The Imagined Village', a severe deconstruction of the myths within English Traditional music, Boyes' paper notes that the "instigators of Folk Revivals are not the folk ... Revivers are almost invariably self-appointed ... give themselves the job of setting the terms for its development ...". This leads to problems of selection and rejection, favouritism, elitism and marginalisation - all abundant in the Irish scene. She concludes that it is the intentions of the singer and the circumstances of performance that define 'Traditional', this concurring with Hall's assertion that the heyday of actual 'Traditional' music (c. 1850 -1960) has come and gone . Tony Mac Mahon argues a similar point, noting the music's nobility, its trivialisation by Irish society, yet its vitality and potential relevance to "the spiritual desert that covers much of the western world today". Seriously critical of the 'Irishness' of material put forward by the TV series 'River of Sound', he is damning too of the use of the music as "aural carpet ... ear chocolate to soothe our nerves in pubs, traffic jams or shopping centres". Mick Moloney gives a tremendous account of emigration in the definition of modern-day traditional music, arguing that in the US 'the pure drop' will continue to be in greater demand - while back home there is more freedom to 'innovate'. Pipes, harp, song, fiddle and accordion are all covered with passionate intensity in these 135,000 words, all indicating a significant academic life within the music, one which is gradually beginning to be recognised by our third-level institutions.
©Fintan Vallely, IrishMusicInfo.com
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