Opinion & Book Reviews
Singer and songwriter Paul Brady has recently published a memoir of his life in music, 'Crazy Dreams', which explores growing up in Strabane, the folk scene of the 60s and 70s, his seminal albums and songs, and recent projects. Adrian Scahill reviews.
Arts Council England's recent funding decisions have set opera companies, orchestras and even musical genres against one another. The controversy demonstrates why musicians have to stand together, writes composer Christopher Fox.
Composer Bill Whelan's new memoir, 'The Road to Riverdance', explores growing up in Limerick, working in the Irish music industry, and the famous performance of his work during the Eurovision interval in 1994. Brendan Finan reviews.
The Irish Traditional Music Archive has recently published 'The Forde Collection: Irish Traditional Music from the William Forde Manuscripts' edited by Nicholas Carolan and Caitlín Uí Éigeartaigh, a hugely important collection of over 900 transcriptions of Irish tunes and song-airs from the 1840s. Martin Dowling reviews.
The sponsorship by Flogas of the Galway International Arts Festival raises a number of questions about what is appropriate sponsorship for the arts, writes Toner Quinn.
A new book by Kate Molleson, 'Sound Within Sound: Opening Our Ears to the Twentieth Century', explores the work of ten composers who have been left out of standard musical histories. Mark Fitzgerald reviews.
In the music of today, you can hear the hopelessness of today's youth as they face a catalogue of dark, gloomy issues, writes Shannon McNamee.
On 26–28 May in the Bello Bar in Dublin, Dave Liebman and the Guilfoyle/Nielsen trio will try to emulate the atmosphere of the New York jazz clubs of the 1960s, with their long playing time and intimate atmosphere in which jazz originally developed. Here, Ronan Guilfoyle discusses what made the jazz club so essential to the music.
A new collection of essays, 'This Woman's Work', focuses on the female experience of music and aims to challenge 'the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men’. Laura Watson reviews.
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta celebrates 50 years this month, but however great its achievements and its positive impact on traditional music and song, Irish-language media cannot stand still, writes Toner Quinn.