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The Marble City Sessions In a unique cross-genre project co-curated with the inspirational Martin Hayes, Kilkenny Arts Festival 2014 brings together some of the finest musicians from the USA and Ireland as artists in residence for a week of one-off collaborations ranging across traditional, jazz, contemporary, folk, Americana and beyond. Martin writes, “We’re bringing together in Kilkenny a collective of aesthetically compatible musicians and friends, and I’m looking forward to lots of new artistic connections and spontaneous musical moments.” At the heart of the Marble City Sessions is the extraordinary new Irish-music group The Gloaming. In addition to their St Canice’s performance on 13 August, each member of the group combines with other leading musicians for a series of unique concerts. Also in residence for the Sessions are some of America’s finest musicians, including jazz guitar legend Bill Frisell, cult progressive folk singer/instrumentalist Sam Amidon, crack clarinettist Doug Wieselman, Old Time fiddler Cleek Schrey, composer/hardanger player Dan Trueman and peerless percussive dancer Nic Gareiss.
Photo Courtesy of Irish Arts Center, New York
On Sunday 17 August, many of our resident artists join forces for a unique musical collaboration (see pages 42-43) that will bring the Marble City Sessions, and the Festival itself, to an unforgettable climax.
MARBLE CITY SESSIONS
Ghost Trio Ireland/USA
Duration 70 mins approx.
TUE
12
THE BLACK ABBEY ADMISSION €20/€17.50
8PM
SPECIAL DEAL FOR THIS EVENT See page 58
Pipes, hardanger fiddle and harmonium coalesce to shape an atmospheric set that speaks … of the space and time inherent in traditional music The Irish Times Ghost Trio brings together three extraordinarily talented musicians – All-Ireland uilleann pipes champion Ivan Goff, sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and fiddler Cleek Schrey – for a groundbreaking experiment in voice, pipes and strings. Dispensing with the chord progressions used in modern forms of Western music, Ghost Trio recovers something more fundamental: the ancient modal sounds buried in Irish and Appalachian tunes. Schrey’s hardanger fiddle fuses Irish songs with the Old Time music of his native Virginia, while Goff coaxes free-ranging sounds from the uilleann pipes and Ó Lionáird layers his celebrated vocals over a harmonium to create a soundscape at once ancient yet utterly fresh. An entrancing set rich in atmosphere and mood.