Earlier this week McHaglund O’Heel wandered over to Carnegie Hall to hang with the famous Irish fiddler Martin Hayes and The Common Ground Ensemble to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Hayes and the Ensemble have a home-away-from-home at the Irish Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen; so, it was with great pride that the H.K. Irish folks jigged & back-clicked our way en masse over to the great hall for their debut.
Hayes is a specialist in Traditional Irish music. He formed the Common Ground Ensemble “as a collaborative project to facilitate a musical dialogue between Irish traditional music and other traditions, genres, and artistic disciplines.” Their performances include percussive dancing, poetry, and music that utilizes a variety of instruments including the bouzouki, cello, piano, concertina, guitar, harmonium and harp. It’s a very lively group.
Hayes says that Traditional Irish music “is a living, breathing tradition that does not belong to any one era; it lives through renewal.”
It lives through renewal.
No nonsense talk about moving the art form forward to some unknown destination or over a cliff or forcing it to be relevant to whatever a particular generation deems relevant. It lives through renewal.
So does ballet. Tradition is the future.
7 responses to “observations 3/19”
Wait what? I thought Art was about making money, celebrity, following trends, selling out and making believe you are making Art. 😆
Renewal YES!!!!!
☘️☘️
I’m calling it now. NYCB’s decision to cancel their Kennedy Center schedule will age terribly.
What seems so obvious to people now, will look foolish within 6-12 months.
Seismic events are incoming.
Why was it a bad decision? The Kennedy Center has become politically Toxic thanks to an Admin that could care less about The Arts.
Lots of All Balanchine programs for 26/27!
Great news. I’ve often wondered if it wouldn’t make more sense to, for example, schedule Jewels once per week over six weeks. Same with Serenade and others. Of course, we might not get a varied casting. But running Jewels for a week straight is asking for audience burnout halfway through. Just my 2 cents.
Agree