After long silence: Redefining Ireland musically
Join us live in our Coastline Gallery for a special talk by musicologist Professor Harry White.
What is 'Irish music'? In this talk, eminent musicologist Professor Harry White (University College Dublin) challenges long-held assumptions and shows how both traditional music and art music are integral to the way music has defined ideas of Ireland.
Ireland has a rich history of both traditional music and art music, yet the orthodoxies of Irish cultural history have long preferred the cultural symbolism of traditional music as an ancient art, uncontaminated by colonial modernity.
In this talk, Professor Harry White questions those orthodoxies and proposes a more inclusive model of historiography in relation to Irish musical experience and identity.
About the speaker
Harry White is Professor of Music at University College Dublin and a Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. From 2003–06, he was inaugural President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland and served thereafter as a council member of the society until May 2021.
He is perhaps best known as a cultural historian of music in Ireland, on which subject he has published over 80 papers and book chapters and three monographs: The Keeper's Recital (1998), The Progress of Music in Ireland (2005), and Music and the Irish Literary Imagination (2008).
Presented in conjunction with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Header image: Oil painting of an Irish landscape, artist unknown, 1918, Ireland. University Art Collection, PW1961.90