Composer and musician Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin will join forces with the Dublin-based Carolan String Quartet for a concert in the Lough Rea Hotel and Spa on Friday, March 19.

The event will feature compositions from Ó Súilleabháin, who is one of the most influential figures in Irish music through his work as a composer and performer, and also in his role as Professor of Music in the University of Limerick. He has held this post since the UL founded its chair of music in the mid 1990s, coming from UCC’s music department where he was to the forefront in promoting Irish music.

“Traditional music is in my blood and classical is in my training, and I love to bring them together,” he says, adding that he is fascinated by mixing the informality of traditional and the formality of classical.
“I’ve always been interested in the crossover between traditional and classical. It’s been a bee in my bonnet and it hasn’t gone away, so it wasn’t a passing phase, but it’s become deeper and deeper as I get older. I like the challenge.”

That interest first came to light in Mícheál’s self-titled album released in 1975 which explored Irish traditional music performance on piano, harpsichord, clavichord, harmonium, and mini Moog synthesiser. And much of his considerable body of work as a composer and performer since then has seen him continue that exploration.

“My own music is a crossover between traditional and classical, and that means I can take on some of the traditions of the countryside where I am playing. East Galway would be famous for traditional music and that will be reflected in the concert.”

The presence of the Carolan String Quartet will give an extra dimension to the concert, he feels.

“Very often I do solo piano work but when I build out the sound to include classical strings, it gives the music a richer colour and texture.”

But he’s not just tied in to performing with classical musicians and feels equally at home with performers from the Irish tradition.
“I’m fascinated by the way traditional music is passed on by ear. You don’t need to read music to learn traditional music – in fact it can be a disadvantage, because the eye can get in the way of the ear.

“Then you have classical music, which is the only musical form that uses the eye as it does, with notations and sheet music.”

Very often, Mícheál sees his role as being “to play outside the box”, bringing classical music where it wouldn’t normally be heard and likewise, bringing traditional music into places more associated with other genres.

“I’m poised in the middle, between the elements, with afoot in both worlds. That’s why I called one of my albums Between Worlds,” he says referring to the compilation album which was released on the Virgin label.

Purists in the word of traditional music have criticised him for his approach but he doesn’t mind.

“I can listen to it an encourage it and organise festivals of it [pure traditional music] but as a musician, it’s not what I do. I am attempting to integrate traditional music with the culture of the piano.”

There are also people in the classical world who disapprove of his musical path. Again, he doesn’t care.

“I love critics,” he says happily. “As a teacher, I’m always anxious to learn.

“As an academic and ethnomusicologist it’s good to explore all music to build up a tapestry. Music is an all pervasive art form, and we’re all engaged with it all the time, even when we’re not aware of it.
Mícheál has spent all his life in higher education and while some people might feel that academia curtails his ability to write and perform music, that’s not how he sees it.

“There’s an important symbiosis between the teaching and writing, a dialogue between the two, and I have no problem facilitating that with other people.”

In his role as Director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at UL, he does expend a lot of energy on administrative work and creative bureaucracy.

“But I’m lucky in that I have a lot of great people around,” he explains.
The Academy puts a strong emphasis on performance as well as theory in its courses, and a lot of the degrees are performance based, he says.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.