A Romanian string quartet and three traditional musician have teamed up in a marriage made in sonic heaven, writes Siobhán Long
Musically, the crossing of borders is a commonplace thing, the sharing of cultures an inevitability rather than a thing of happenstance - and Irish traditional music, for all its hang-ups and hard lines has found itself at the cutting edge where cultures willingly collide on the back of crotchets, quavers and the odd slip jig thrown in for good measure.
It's no surprise to find Máirtín O'Connor, Galwegian accordionist and composer of some of the finest tunes not just in contemporary Irish tradition, but a plethora of tunes which cross not only borders but entire hemispheres in their search for kindred spirits, once again in the eye of the storm, alongside Garry Ó Briain and Cathal Hayden.
O'Connor's 2001 album, The Road West, aided and abetted by Ó Briain, was full of spirit-shocking originality, with its elaborate criss-crossing of straight-up trad to reggae, jazz and Hungarian and Polish dance tunes. The pair's insatiable appetite for musical refreshments of a distinctly spicy nature has brought them across the paths of musicians in places as far flung as Rio de Janeiro, Beijing and Abuja in Nigeria.
This time, their sonic experiments are happening much closer to home - in Galway's Town Hall Theatre. Saddling up alongside the ConTempo String Quartet, the Romanian quartet in residence, for a concert and pair of workshops, it's an arranged marriage of the traditional and the classical that promises much in the way of spark.
Following their initial introduction, courtesy of TG4's 2003 Christmas' TV special, Lóchrann Cheoil, the musical collision that followed was one the ConTempo Quartet, O'Connor and O'Briain were intent on rekindling.
"ConTempo are superb players," says Ó Briain. "They're a world-class string quartet and once we saw that it would be a question of preparing scores for any work we'd do together, we went away and arranged a piece of Bach that ConTempo then transform into The Bucks Of Oranmore, or as Máirtín calls it, 'The Bachs Of Oranmore'. Then we worked on a piece called Winter Sun, which Máirtín and I had previously recorded, and the two pieces worked out so well, and we got on so well, that we immediately started talking about doing concerts."
ConTempo's cellist, Adrian Mantu, is equally spirited in his enthusiasm for the collaboration. Speaking from Bucharest, where the quartet is on tour, he's quick to credit the quartet's three-year residency in Galway with providing the impetus for next week's concerts and workshops - not to mention the raft of sponsors, including TG4, NUI Galway and the Arts Council, with additional funding from Galway City and County Councils and the Galway University Foundation.
Formed in 1995, ConTempo cut its creative teeth with a residency in London, and having garnered no less than 13 international prizes, scored music for Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks's Band Of Brothers, and performed for both Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II
With such an illustrious background, the prospect of tackling the finer points of Irish traditional music must surely have triggered little in the way of apprehension for the quartet.
"It's been wonderful for us to be based in Galway," says Mantu says, "so close to Connemara and other places which are so beautiful and so inspiring. In fact, we are now thinking of basing ourselves in Galway after the residency finishes. We want to work with both classical and traditional music now and after our residency, and already there are three youth orchestras in Galway who meet each week, and play together for fun, without any funding.
"In Galway county, you have at least four hundred very good musicians, but they don't have a music school, so we think this will be a new project for us."
One of ConTempo's primary aims is to bring classical music to new audiences."We really want to find new audiences," says Mantu. "We played the first classical concert ever on Inis Oírr, and it was a great success. We couldn't believe it! It's normal in a way, because in the west everyone plays an instrument, and traditional music is quite close to classical music, to the baroque era."
That might come as a surprise to trad stalwarts who like their music neither shaken nor stirred by infernal external influences.
"This baroque style is something that we share easily with Máirtín, Garry and Cathal," says Mantu. "Years ago, when baroque music was popular, some Italian musicians came to Ireland and everybody grew to love their style of playing music. Irish traditional music has a lot of ornamentation and embellishments which are exactly like what you find in baroque music, but nobody seems to realise this. For example, we are going to perform together some of the music of Locatelli, an Italian baroque composer, called Concerto Grosso. This is a piece from our classical repertoire which we've paired with some polkas. Both share the same key, the same rhythm, with just little differences. What we aim to do is to perform the classical, the Irish and then to try some variations on both. It's like a new style between Irish traditional music and classical music."
With a concert and an album in the offing, ConTempo and the O'Connor/Ó Briain/Hayden trio are hurtling headlong into the partnership. Such clarity of vision, and ease of partnership is nothing but pleasure for a working musician, says Ó Briain. "It's a really great way of working and with such a responsive group of players, not to mention Máirtín's huge collection of eclectic tunes, from Eastern European to classical and baroque. The Romanian music we're doing is from the Conservatory tradition, rather than the folk, but Bogdan, ConTempo's lead violinist, has played with some traditional Romanian bands and he plays gypsy music very well."
Collaborations such as this are what fires a musician. . "You can't fall back on any of your ol' clichés!" he laughs. "You've got to get dug in and find new approaches. ConTempo are working to such a high standard, and they're so ready to meet us half way, that we find we're doing that ourselves too. It's lovely."
Adrian Mantu considers his energies are best spent on exploring the shared common ground rather than on getting hung up on their differences. "We are not classical musicians, and Máirtín, Garry and Cathal are not traditional musicians. We are just musicians, and we are trying to play good music together. With good musicians, you can play any kind of music."