Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin
The pianist Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, one of Ireland’s foremost composers and music scholars, will give a combined recital and lecture on the first published collection of Irish music Sept. 7 (Friday) at 3:30 p.m. in the Browning Cinema of the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
“The Most Celebrated Irish Tunes: A Recital-Lecture on the First Published Collection of Irish Music,” will include piano performances by Ó Súilleabháin drawn from a collection compiled by John and William Neal, two 18th century Dublin musical instrument craftsmen. Music had been an integral part of Irish oral tradition for at least ten thousand years before the Neals compiled their annotated collection of 49 tunes in 1724. The collection, titled “A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes Proper for the Violin, German Flute or Hautboy,” includes the earliest versions of tunes now widely familiar to enthusiasts of traditional Irish music.
Ó Súilleabháin, a professor of music at the University of Limerick, is spending the academic year at Notre Dame as the visiting Patrick B. O’Donnell Professor of Irish Studies.
The event, which is being sponsored by Notre Dame’s Keough Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Department of Music, is free and open to the public, but tickets are required for admission. These may be obtained from the DeBartolo Center ticket office at 524-631-2800 or Online here.