The Interface between Traditional Music and Art Music in Ireland: A Multimodal Art-Practice Research Study. Famine Odyssey.

Ó Casaide, Odhrán (2025) The Interface between Traditional Music and Art Music in Ireland: A Multimodal Art-Practice Research Study. Famine Odyssey. [Artefact]

PDF (Famine Odyssey. Score submitted as part of: The Interface between Traditional Music and Art Music in Ireland: A Multimodal Art-Practice Research Study.) - Accepted Version Download (4MB)

Abstract

This PhD project was undertaken at the Dundalk Institute of Technology, commencing in 2019 until submission in 2023. Work on Famine Odyssey began in the summer/autumn of 2020 and the current version was completed in the spring of 2023. It is a study based on the interface, or boundary area, between traditional music and art music in Ireland. The interface is where two musical genres meet and influence each other and, as such, is continuous throughout history. Musical influences can cross the interface in one, or in both directions. This thesis describes activity on the interface. It also seeks to explore this boundary, first with a recital which contrasts music from two selected sub-periods of the interface and, secondly, by means of a new composition which is located on the interface. The recital contrasts music from the great Collections of Irish traditional music in the 18. and 19. centuries, music which is mostly if not entirely pre-Famine, with that of the Nationalist school of art-music composers, which commenced in the final quarter of the 19. century. The great Collections represent a fusion of folk music and art music (harper music) in Ireland since the Middle Ages, or earlier. The recital contrasts this with art music, compositions and arrangements, with folk music and folk-cultural influences, up to the early 1960s. After that, one can observe a qualitative change in art-music composition on the interface - the postNationalist period. The second artistic endeavour is a large-scale musical composition, Famine Odyssey. It is an original work which seeks to arrive at a partial synthesis of art music and traditional music and, as such, is post-Nationalist. It is an art-music composition, imbued with features of Irish traditional music, sean-nós singing, traditional instruments and Irish idiom. The work is based on a true story of flight from Ireland to Canada in 1847 to escape the Great Famine.

Item Type:	Artefact
Subjects:	Arts and Humanities Arts and Humanities > Music
Research Centres:	Centre for Creative Arts, Media & Music
Depositing User:	Claire Fitch
Date Deposited:	13 Nov 2025 11:30
Last Modified:	13 Nov 2025 11:30
License:	Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0
URI:	https://eprints.dkit.ie/id/eprint/957

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