Irish Folk Music, Town Hall, June 12
The title ‘Irish Folk Music’, for the performance by Maire Ni Chathasaigh and Chris Newman last Friday could have somewhat misled the audience, as anyone expecting a rousing chorus of Paddy McGinty’s Goat would have been disappointed. The duo instead offered an eclectic mix of modern compositions, bluegrass and jazz, as well as a scattering of traditional Irish music.
Chris Newman proved to be a virtuoso guitarist of immense talent. Maire had to grapple with some technical problems with the sound system, but nonetheless demonstrated how the harp can, with some tweaking, do much more than the slightly wistful music, suggesting many sorrows, that perhaps we expect. Whether anything as lovely as the harp needs to be remodelled to cope with jazz is, however, open to debate. The harp piece Eleanor Plunkett, commemorating the last survivor of a tragic family ended an evening of immense variety with a touch of real Irish Folk Music.
Rosalind Ambler
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