IRELAND: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690-1840 THE MUSIC

featuring:

   Liz Carroll, Liz Knowles, Kieran O'Hare, Catriona McKay, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Marty Fahey, Trevor Hutchinson, Jackie Moran, Emer Mayock, Mick O'Brien, Aoife Ní Bhriain 

   "This is a spectacular album. It features a beautiful mixture of old and new music from one of the most elite gatherings of musicians you're likely to find."                       Dan Neely, IRISH ECHO 

The album features 15 tracks of music and an extensive booklet with images and background information.     

1. Carolan’s Concerto 

2.  Portraiture and Theater: Blind Daniel the Piper (March) / Crow Street (Reel) 

3. Lady Gordon’s Minuet 

4.  Dublinand Bookbindings: A View from the North (Air) 

5.  Soft Mild Morning  
6. Religion, Metalwork and Ceramics: The Lough Derg Cross (Air) / A Tale of a Tub (Reel) / The Potter's Wheel (Reel)             
7. The Droning Old-Aged Woman (Jig) / Byrnes March 
8. Textiles, Glass Musical Instruments & Fancy Work: Planxty Charles Bunworth/Rose & Kathleen's Slip Jig
9.  The Dark Slender Boy (Air)
10.  Furniture: The  Plane of the Plank (Hornpipe/The Knight of Glin's Jig
11.  Sir Ulick Burke (Lament)
12.  Landscapes & Tourism: Irishtown (March)
13.  (It was) A Magic Mist that came over me one night and put me astray 
14.  The Irish Country House: The True Love of my Heart (slow piece)
15.  Carolan's Farewell to Music                                                    -"There are some very interesting differences between what we think of as Irish music today and the musical environment of eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland.  Collections of music like those of  O'Farrell, Petrie, Bunting, Goodman, and Neal each tell a different story, revealing what tunes were in circulation and offering an indication of both their style and interpretation.  The repretoire seems to have been far more varied, encompassing dance tunes from the Continent such as the minuet, pieces from popular opera and derived from songs and tunes that have a strikingly different modality than those in the common repretoire today.  I chose to focus on those more obscure types of pieces to contrast and complement Liz Carroll's (the other producer of this CD) compositions.  My litmus test for dusting off such works was first, that they should be interesting and attractive melodies, and second, that they say something both familiar and new to us as modern-day Irish musicians.  This allowed us to engage with the exhibition in ways both historical and freshly contemporary.  The idea of music as a piece of history that can be rediscovered and given breath again through the hands of musicians hundreds of years later is fascinating to me:  it calls great attention to the power of music as connector of human experience." 2015, Liz Knowles (one of the producers).