Jim Carroll was at the Festival of World Cultures in Dún Laoghaire and Siobhán Long reviews Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann at the Dome in Clonmel.
Festival of World Cultures
Various venues, Dún Laoghaire
If you were to judge the public's appetite for music by what you hear on the airwaves, you'd probably conclude that the fourth Festival of World Cultures was doomed from the outset.
What's that, you say, musicians from Palestine, Argentina, Siberia, Senegal and various other points on the compass? More than 100 events starring artists who probably don't sing in English? Tuvan throat-singing workshops, Brazilian capoeira dancers and Nicaraguan mural painters? Where's Louis Walsh and his latest boy-band travesty when you need them to bring in the crowds?
For the thousands who made the Dún Laoghaire festival such a colourful, good-natured, family-friendly jamboree at the weekend, the geography and linguistics of the performers did not matter one jot.
Here's proof, if ever proof were required, that there is a clamour for other music, a demand for sounds that fall outside the force-fed Anglo-American diet. That such music remains largely marginalised in this country is a crying shame.
Of course, there are caveats. A sighting of pan-piping buskers may have sent some faint-hearted souls scurrying for the DART, but a little perseverance would have taken you beyond the face-painting, tie-dyed, ribbon-waving elements that such a festival inevitably houses - and onto the outdoor stage, where the Jazz Jamaica All Stars held sway.
A breathtaking whirl of ska, jazz and calypso, Gary Crosby's big-band sound has an exuberance and a finesse that draw both listeners and dancers closer to the stage.
There's a different magnetism at work at Amal Markus's performance at the Pavilion Theatre. Here's a diva if ever there was one, a singer emoting Palestinian and Arabic folk songs with passion and panache. Even the translations of her songs, handed to the audience before the show, cannot fully convey where she takes these folk songs and original compositions.
When she explains the genesis of each song, she simply and gracefully makes salient points about cultural struggles and artistic censorship.
Perhaps the most surprising performance of the weekend was that of Rodrigo y Gabriela at Monkstown Parish Church. Perhaps it was the gloriously scene-stealing setting, but the Mexican-bred, Irish-based pair's zinging guitars found new echoes and created some fascinating patterns, even lobbing a loop of The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army into the midst of another synergetic storm.
Everywhere you looked, however, cultures were crossing by stealth and design, and festival artist-in-residence Nitin Sawhney was responsible for a good deal of this. Besides hosting masterclasses and performing solo, he guided a supergroup of trad musicians, singers and part of a gospel choir around his Prophesy piece, finding common hooks and nooks for all to hold onto.
That may have been one side of the Irish tradition, but The Seas provided quite a different take on "Irish" music. Based in Dublin with members from Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and South Africa, this was hip hop speaking an international language with a local lilt.
Unlike previous Irish hip-hop crews, there was a confidence and a cockiness to the Seas' five MCs that made you eager to hear more. Certainly, they were the equal of the night's headline act, legendary Dakar rhymers Positive Black Soul.
Despite the late cancellation of the Sunday-night headliner Toumani Diabate, due to flight problems from Mali, the festival organisers can give themselves a round of applause. While plenty of programming and logistical challenges lie ahead, here's a festival that has slowly, surely and steadily found its feet.
Jim Carroll
Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann
The Dome, Clonmel
Fittingly, for an August weekend, the wind howled so hard we thought it would surely get the better of the prized Dome, the jewel in the crown of the fleadh's live venues. But three solid hours of music finally stilled the heavens, the musicians triumphed and punters emerged into a still night as if nothing more energetic than a firefly had traversed the ether.
Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, founder of the Irish World Music Centre at the University of Limerick, and ard ullamh (supreme bard) of last year's fleadh, led a merry band of musicians through the sprightliest of repertoires. Kicking off with a tribute to his mentor, Seán Ó Riada, Ó Súilleabháin and percussionist Mel Mercier skipped lightly through a series of clan marches, including the supremely regal Marsáil
Rí Laoise, revelling in the subtle dissonance of lurid piano and skeletal bodhrán as they pirouetted coquettishly through their brief set.
Cúil Aodha's finest contribution to contemporary Irish music has to be the sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. His pairing of vocals with the unnatural bedfellow of Ó Súilleabháin's piano was moderately successful, but there was no doubting the sovereignty of that voice, inhabiting everything from Peadar Ó Doirnín's Mná Na hÉireann to the lonesome An Buachaill Caol Dubh with quiet authority.
After such exalted beginnings, Eileen Ivers tripped on stage, glorying in the energy unleashed by her predecessors. This Bronx-born fiddler tackled hornpipes and jigs with ease, infusing the gossamer Crock Of Gold with a comfortable jazz rhythm that reinvented it without sacrificing tradition.
Celebrating the talents of what she dubbed "the next generation" of musicians whom she had witnessed throughout the day, Ivers revealed the generosity of spirit and spirit of adventure that have set her apart from her earliest incursions onto the live circuit.
Later contributions from local fiddler Jack Ryan, and from the Tipperary Millennium Orchestra added further to the momentum. Following a rousing set that included Paddy Ryan's Dream, The Silver Spear and the oft-abused Jenny's Chickens, we were treated to Ivers's magnificent calling card, Pachelbel's Frolics, complete with trad makeover, quickly followed by Ó Súilleabháin and Mercier's tenacious and playful party piece, Music Be More Crispy.
This was a night when tabla rhythms and south Tipperary fiddle tunes melded seamlessly: truly, evidence of the long arm of the music gathering past, present and future effortlessly into its welcoming gabháil.
Siobhán Long
