The Summer may be long forgotten but the memories of the best festivals of the year are about to be revived!
Voting for the Fifth Annual Irish Festival Awards is underway.
The Awards are giving festival fans across the country a chance to vote for the Irish festivals that made Summer 2011 one to remember. Voting is available online now at www.festivalawards.ie.
With a total of 20 category awards up for grabs – ranging from Best Large Festival and Best Service; to Greenest Festival and Family Festival Awards – the public’s favourites will be unveiled after voting closes on January 31st.
With Ireland producing an incredibly high standard and broad range of festivals this year, the competition is set to be the closest call the awards have seen since they were set up in 2007.
“The Irish Festival Awards were set up in 2007 to honour the people behind the scenes that make every Irish Summer such an eclectic celebration of music, art and performance,” said Awards Director, Cillian Stewart.
“Every fan can vote for the festival or music act that made their social calendar sparkle. Voting on the shortlist takes place every December & January and for their trouble, fans are in with a chance to win tickets to every winning festival so don't delay, get online & vote!”
‘BeautifulUniverseMasterChampion’ Released: 25th Nov 2011on Richter Collective.
Fresh from winning ‘Best Live Act’ at the first ever Northern Ireland Music Awards, signing to Sargent House Records in USA and about to embark on a December Irish Tour, ‘BeautifulUniverseMasterChampion’ is the third single to be taken from And So I Watch You From Afar’s critically acclaimed sophomore album ‘GANGS’.
UPCOMING LIVE DATES
December 28 – Club House, Castlebar
December 29 – Crane Lane Theatre, Cork
December 30 – Electric Avenue, Waterford
December 31 – Roisin Dubh, Galway
“Gangs is a very, very special album indeed” 4/5 The Fly(album review)
“an utterly immersive tour de force…’Gangs’ triumphs on every possible level” 9/10 Rock Sound (LP review)
Hot Press 4.5 / 5 (LP Review)
‘these Belfast Boys have IT!” 5/5 Artrocker (LP review)
"I'm not kidding, this piece of music will change your life" Zane Lowe, Radio 1 (re: single Search:Party:Animal)
“full of tense, nervous energy…their second album ‘Gangs’ ticks plenty of the right boxes” Q (LP review)
The second edition of Fintan Vallely’s “Companion to Irish Traditional Music” was launched on 24th November at an event in The Royal Irish Academy. Published by Cork University Press, the edition was launched by Nicholas Carolan, Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.
The ultimate reference for all players, devotees and students of Irish Traditional Music, The Companion to Irish Traditional Music is an indispensable reference guide to Ireland’s universally recognised Traditional music, song and dance. This comprehensive resource – now revised and greatly expanded – is the largest single collection of such diverse, essential data. It brings together the knowledge of two hundred contributors in an easy-to-use A-Z format with entries on:
• Song in Irish and English
• Dance – Step Dance, Céilí and Sets
• Solo and Group Playing
• Céilí Bands and Professionalism
• Storytelling
• Instruments and Technology
• Tune Types and Composition
• Styles and Ornamentation
• Organisations and Promotion Education and
Transmission
• Collectors and Archives
• History and Revival
• Performers, Stylists, Commentators
• Broadcasting and Recording
• English, Scottish, Welsh music and song
• Music in all Irish Counties, Europe & USA
• Timeline – 1100 BC – 2011 AD
• Irish Music Books 1724 – 2011
This extraordinary encyclopedia covers the people, instruments, styles, repertoires and regions of past and present Irish Traditional music, song and dance. Half a million words and several hundred images present facts, ideas and terminology, explore aesthetics and ideology, and document teaching, learning, study and performance.
The immense volume of biography, history and opinion is diverse yet comprehensive. It is drawn from the collective expertise of some 200 specialists who in A-Z format deal with all instruments and playing styles, repertoires, people, performance and transmission, media and professionalism, ideology, awards standards and competition. They broaden the picture to take in the musics of Scotland and England, migration to Britain and the USA, the exhilarating new internationalism and music tourism. Uniquely too, The Companion carries extensive data on Irish Traditional music as it is played in all counties of the island of Ireland, as well as in Britain, Scotland, the USA and the major European countries. This marks the book as a compendium of not only what is being done and by whom, but also of where it is happening and in what way.
A detailed time-line charts the history of music events, initiative and publications as prompted by and interwoven with history, and a categorized bibliography carries easy reference for all forms of enquiry. These pages lay out the canon of Traditional music in Ireland as assembled by its significant performers, teachers and collectors, composers and arrangers, commentators, promoters and audiences. It is an essential asset and a core reference for all research and further study in Irish studies, Irish music and ethnomusicology.
FINTAN VALLELY is a musician, writer, lecturer and researcher on Traditional music. He began to play Traditional music on the flute in the early 1960’s and compiled its first Irish-music tutor in 1986. He later studied ethnomusicology at Queens University Belfast, became The Irish Times’ Traditional music correspondent and reviewer from 1994-2000 and was columnist in that field with The Sunday Tribune 1996-2002.
All data in the book is supported by a website – www.companion.ie – which provides detailed advice on creative ways to use the volume, and links to websites which cover other aspects of the book’s topics.
The Contemporary Music Centre launches promotional CD Contemporary Music from Ireland Volume Ten
The Contemporary Music Centre launches the tenth volume in its promotional CD series Contemporary Music from Ireland at 6pm, Wednesday, 7 Dec 2011. Orlaith McBride, Director, The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, which grant aids the Contemporary Music Centre, officially launches the CD which is supported by Culture Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Lottery Fund. The CD launch will feature live performance with Paul Roe, clarinet, as well as an outdoor electro-acoustic programme.
The CMC promotional CD series gives a snapshot of what is happening right now in contemporary music in Ireland. Volume Ten features ten works, selected for variety of styles and all written in the twenty-first century. As well as showcasing the vitality of Irish composition, the CD features many national and international performing groups and individuals, all of whom are committed and active perfomers of new music.
“The works featured on Contemporary Music from Ireland, Volume 10, celebrate diversity: the “what’s new”, “what’s innovative”, “what’s vibrant” within the music of Ireland over the last five years. The sonic rewards are plentiful and we hope these works entertain, inspire and entrance you as they have audiences in Ireland and abroad” says Evonne Ferguson, Director, The Contemporary Music Centre.
The CD will be distributed nationally and internationally to radio stations, festivals, concert promoters, performers and universities amongst other places. All the tracks may be broadcast and further information on all composers can be found on the Centre’s web site at www.cmc.ie.
Video interviews with the featured composers about their works on the CD will be available on www.cmc.ie during December. A selection of tracks from the disc will also be available to listen to through streaming on CMC's web site following the official launch.
The Centre has been producing CDs of Irish composers' work for over fifteen years. As well as producing ten volumes of Contemporary Music from Ireland the Centre partnered with Diatribe Records in 2010 for the release of Solo Series I – a 4-CD box set. The Centre plans to further develop its CD series in 2012 with a new series aimed at presenting a representative cross-section of new music
The Contemporary Music Centre is Ireland's national archive, resource centre and promotional body for new music, supporting the work of Irish composers from the Republic and Northern Ireland. The Centre is supported by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.
For further information on Contemporary Music from Ireland Volume 10, the composers and performers featured contact Karen Hennessy, Promotion Manager, The Contemporary Music Centre, 19 Fishamble Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 8. Tel: 01 673 1922 Email khennessy@nullcmc.ie web site www.cmc.ie
