Ryan Molloy travels to Hong Kong this week to present a talk at the ISCM-Musicarama Festival Composer Forum in association with the Contemporary Music Centre's Composers' Voice programme.
Molloy's talk is titled 'Exploring the influence of traditional Irish music in Gealach Chríoch Lochlann'; this piece will be performed by Ensemble Kochi on 3 June at Hong Kong City Hall.
"A large part of my compositional work has been influenced by my upbringing as a traditional Irish musician. This influence has been both direct (through use of traditional Irish music materials) and indirect (through notions of place, landscape and identity). This paper briefly examines how stylistic aspects of traditional Irish music such as ornamental frameworks, rhythmic structures and microinterval modality have been incorporated into a recent string quartet Gealach Chríoch Lochlann. The pitfalls of working with such strongly stereotypical materials are examined with respect to other approaches by Irish composers, throwing into relief the dichotomy between traditional Irish music and art music in Ireland that has existed hitherto." – Ryan Molloy
Composers' Voice is an audience development initiative of the Contemporary Music Centre and is made possible through the continued funding of the Centre by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaion and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. www.cmc.ie