ARTIST: Lorcán Mac Mathúna
COUNTRY: Ireland
GENRE: Sean Nós, Traditional Irish Music
BIOGRAPHY: Lorcán released his debut CD ‘Rógaire Dubh’ in 2007 with Claddagh Records with a forthcoming CD ‘An Dubh is an Gheal: Darkness and Light – Loric Dialogues’ due for release in 2011. Commissions include a descriptive performance ‘Tásc is Tuairisc’ for the Borradh Buan 2009 festival with Simon O Conor, and a 45 minute musical drama of the Irish Iron-Age epic An Táin Bó Cualigne taken from the 12th century redaction of the Book of Leinster. He has undertaken studies in traditional music styles and extended techniques of select European and Asian cultures investigating their correlation with sean nós song style, and is currently undertaking research into vocal dance music. His present work focuses on the performance of sean nós conventions within diverse musical frameworks given expression in projects such as Ian Wilson’s contemporary improvisation-collaboration ‘Common Tongue’ (debut release, “Common Tongue – Want and Longing”, in November 2010); the Sea Stallion Project, with performance of Norse and Irish material, titled ‘Northern Lights’; and music improvisations to medieval Irish literature, featuring Seán Óg and Martin Tourish’ titled ‘The Arrows That Murder Sleep’. Performances, both collaboratively and solo, include Celtic Connections 2009 and 2010; IMRAM-the Dublin Irish literature festival; the William Kennedy international festival of piping; LIFEM09; The Carlow Arts Festival; and the Young Masters of the Tradition festival. He is a recipient of Irish Arts Council Awards, including Bursaries, Commissions and Deis recording and research awards; touring awards with Music Network and Culture Ireland. Lorcán regularly teaches singing in schools programmes, music organisations and folk clubs. He is currently associate researcher with GradCAM undertaking projects in traditional & improvised music with the tradfutures seminar team.
MORE ABOUT: Lorcán Mac Mathúna is a singer, writer, and arranger who’s work confounds categorisation. His stylistic inspiration is rooted in Sean-Nós vocal techniques and musical approaches. Born into a family steeped in Irish music and singing, the Gaelic songs of the West and South of Ireland and their unique Sean Nós style were central in his musical nurturing and left an indelible print which he carries forward in all his musical life.
The seed of Lorcán Mac Mathúna’s absorption into the Irish sean nós tradition were lain over generations. He didn’t become interested in the story of Irish folklore expressed in the oral Gaelic tradition, it absorbed him through the nurture of a family tradition: it took him for its own. The unfettered music and emotional currents of Sean Nós was a fabric of his life long before he became aware of his love for the soul and deep cultural narrative of this free-form singing style.
His voice finds expression for a history of tortured lives as it twists in the deeper human currents of hope, love, and betrayal. Sean nós is the musical reliving of intense moments of emotion; a capture of all the impassioned feelings that exist at the moments when an entire life’s significance is cramped into brief, fateful, decisions; choices; and acts of history. It is a reincarnation of the welling of overpowering sorrows and joys that form the essence of cultural narrative. It is the voice of stones. His voice finds the fissures and twisted grain of this monolithic tapestry of lives, giving expression to the soul of Irish culture.
Bringing his grasp of the essence of sean nós into contemporary projects his voice melds with modern soundscapes and finds expressive and complimentary pathways in the currents of jazz, electronica, avante garde, and contemporary classic compositions. Sean-Nós is the essence of his music and of his self consciousness and is an undeniable part of his relationship with the world he encounters. It is more than a cultural activity; it is the manifestation of his identity.
PROJECTS:
Tásc is Tuairisc (Account and Death Notice) is the title of a half hour descriptive piece of music commissioned by the Axis theatre for their Irish Language festival Borradh Buan. A lyrical and musical fictional account of a seaman on the doomed Franklin Polar expedition, it is the work of Lorcán Mac Mathúna, Daire Ó Breacáin, and composer Simon O’Connor. The inaugural performance of this piece for piano, voice and fiddle, occurred on 24 October 2009 at the Axis theatre.
more Tásc is Tuairisc info and videos here
Northern Lights is a project of Lorcán Mac Mathúna (voice, whistle), Raphael De Cock (voice, pipes, siberian harp, shrutti, hardanger fiddle, jews harp), and James Mahon (uillean pipes, whistle flutes) which blends Norse and Irish folklore through their music. It is a confluence of common themes and empathetic currents of differing traditions, a dialogue of folklore. It has been in progress since 2008 and it has toured both Belgium and Ireland (twice).
The Frozen North: a dark interlocking saga containing the magnificant Gaelic elegy Tuireamh
Mhic Fhinín Dhuibh and the Norwegian saga of ice and cannibalism De Frealause Men
more Northern Lights videos here
Grá agus Bás – Love and Death: contemporary resonances of Ancient Ireland: An experimental composition project involving Seán Óg McErlaine (saxophone) and Martin Tourish (accordian), which takes Medieval Irish literature as a lyrical source for modern compositions.
Másu Óenadaig Atbir: Ordeal by Cohabitation. From the Early Irish (9th Century). Tragic love story of Liadán and Cuirithir.
In a severe test of their religious vows of chastity the Abbot, Cummine of Clonfert, orders the star-crossed lovers to share a bed.
Common Tongue is a unique trio combining sean-nós singing, improvising saxophone and live electronics. Formed in 2009 this group of musicians (Lorcán Mac Mathúna, Cathal Roche and Ian Wilson), each highly acclaimed in his own field, have together undertaken an exploration and re-contextualisation of the art of sean-nós, providing new melodies to old Irish songs, considering fresh ways of defining and presenting melody itself and, in the process, finding a new, 21st-century equilibrium between the notions of tradition and experimentation.
SELECTED PRESS REVIEWS AND QUOTES:
“Spectacular… deeply expressive” (The Irish Times)
“Exciting and interesting” (Fatea Magazine)
“Outstanding” (New Folk Sounds)
“Timeless and gently epic… mesmerising” (The Living Tradition)
“It’s refreshing to hear musicians explore the crosscurrents that might have influenced (and clearly are now influencing) traditional music, particularly when those tidal patterns extend to Scandinavia. (…) A bold ride into uncharted terrain.” (Siobhan Long, The Irish Times)
“Lorcan MacMathuna gathers from the air something which is older than the Tain – ageless, primaeval and haunting. He has caught and manifest for us a sound which is fundamental; which has existed since men and women first sang – sang to express what they felt and what they knew to be true. It is the music of mythology – all the cadences of history and prehistory residing in one man’s voice. It calls to the soul. And the soul answers. And we are privileged to listen and to hear in our own blood and in the fibres of our understanding.” (Kate Newman)
“This was a truly magical performance rising to the occasion and captivating the audience. The entire piece is controlled by MacMathuna’s spell binding singing which ranged from low chanting to full throated and powerful vocals that echoed through the Cathedral. The musical accompaniment of uilleann pipes, fiddle, saxophone and piano accordion also included pre-recorded electronic music. This was one of the never to be forgotten moments of the entire festival.” (The Living Tradition)
“An astonishing new voice… Deep, dark and beautiful… It takes a keen ear and a sharply honed sensibility to appreciate where style and substance meet in a repertoire that is raw, astringent, technically complex and regionally diverse. A compelling collection of lowering laments that positions him in the vanguard of a new generation of sean nos singers.” (Songlines)
“Mac Mathúna has both the voice and the attitude to place him in the first rank of the new wave of traditional singers… A fascinating alternative – distinctively Irish but without an atom of the paddywhackery that has come to infect the St Patrick’s Day celebrations” (Journal of Music in Ireland)
“Cork-born Lorcán is a passionate young sean-nós singer with a confident and commanding, though sensible, measured style which emphasises the musical quality of the song in an often innovative way while demonstrating both a respect for and understanding of the texts. Sean-nós singing can be a bit of an acquired taste, I’ll admit, but Lorcán’s strongly individual presentation is both intense and involving without being austere or intimidating: deliberate: yes but involved rather than soporific. There’s both intimacy and an understated sensuousness in his response.” (The Living Tradition)
“One of the most captivating discs of sean-nós singing I’ve encountered in recent years.” (The Living Tradition)
“Spine-tingling” (3Roots magazine)
“It seems I have encountered for the first time an album with a feel of sean-nós that is so full of love of songs and that is at the same time so originally and deftly arranged. At any rate, there are a good many of songs that will keep you fascinated so that you might find yourself listening to them over and over again.” (Mícheál, Tigh Mhicil – Irish cultural blog)
“He delves so deeply beneath Saileog Rua that he scarcely remembers to come up for air, his voice creaking and groaning with the weight of one long-immersed in the spirit of the song” (Siobhán Long, The Irish Times)
“Have a listen to a master at work” (Allcelticmusic.com)
“I will be listening to this CD again, and perhaps changing my mind about this song or that, and I am certainly looking forward to hearing Lorcán Mac Mathúna again, singing with all the unwavering commitment of his best work” (Barra Ó Séaghdha, The Journal of Music in Ireland)
“…but the cold vanished instantly with the opening song, Tuirimh Mhic Fhinín Dhubh. Mac Mathúna’s performance of this unusual eighteenth-century song was commanding. A young man with a Dublin accent and a musical heart based deep in Múscraí, Mac Mathúna has, on this evidence, both the voice and the attitude to place him in the first rank of the new wave of traditional singers.” (Pat Ahern, The Journal of Music in Ireland)
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY:
- “An Dubh is an Gheal: Darkness and Light – Loric Dialogues” (2011)
- “Rógaire Dubh” (2007)
OTHER VIDEOS:
The World premiere of ‘An Táin from the Book of Leinster’.
The Irish Iron-age epic, An Táin Bó Cualigne (the Catle raid of Cooley), is the central tale in the Ulster cycle. It is over 2,000 years old.
In it, Cú Cullain alone faces the combined armies of four provinces of Ireland, united under Maedbh’s banner. The prize: the magnificant brown bull of Cooley.
Blood is spilt on the Táin as the armies of Ireland are checked by the lone warrior who holds them off for a winter while the Ulster warriors lie in a stupor under an ancient curse.
The William Kennedy International Piping Festival commissioned Lorcán Mac Mathúna to produce this modern musical interpretation.
The World Premiere was performed in Armagh CoI Cathedral on Nov 13th at the 2010 festival.
Irish lament by a long haired singer. Gaelic traditional song, world music for Ireland.
Lorcan Mac Mathuna accompanied by Barry Lyons, Joey Doyle and Maitiu O Casaide.
Irish love song an clar bog deil deal. Lorcan Mac Mathuna on voice with Joey Doyle on piano. Beautiful 17th century Gaelic love song.
SELECTED PERFORMANCES:
- Celtic Connections (2009, 2010)
- IMRAM-the Dublin Irish literature festival (2007, 2009, 2010)
- the William Kennedy international festival of piping (2009, 2010)
- Belfast Festival at Queens (2010)
- The Carlow Arts Festival (2010)
- Innerleithan Folk Festival (2010)
- Volmarsteine Irish Festival (2010)
- London International Festival of Exploratory Music (2009)
- The Young Masters of the Tradition festival (2006)
SONGS:
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