Entrepreneur

Rethinking Opera

Christopher Fox is a composer, teacher and writer on music.

Don’t Upset the Rhythm

Matthew Jordan is a jazz trumpeter and assistant professor of media studies at the Pennsylvania State University. His new book is Le Jazz: Jazz and French Cultural Identity.

Will Vinson/Lage Lund Quartet

Kevin Stevens is is a Dublin-based novelist and writer on history, literature, and jazz.

Have a Little Faith

John McLachlan is a composer and member of Aosdána. www.johnmclachlan.org

Ives Ensemble

Garrett Sholdice is a composer and a director of the record label and music production company Ergodos.

The Musical Priest

Ciaran Carson (1948–2019) was a poet, prose writer, translator and flute-player. He was the author of Last Night’s Fun – A Book about Irish Traditional Music, The Pocket Guide to Traditional Irish Music, The Star Factory, and the poetry collections The Irish for No, Belfast Confetti and First Language: Poems. He was Professor of Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast. Between 2008 and 2010 Ciaran wrote a series of linked columns for the Journal of Music, beginning with 'The Bag of Spuds' and ending with 'The Raw Bar'.

After Franco

Kasongo Musanga was a Congolese scholar and musician. For more of his work, visit http://francorestored.blogspot.com.

CD Review: Josephine Foster – Graphic as a Star

Rachel Blech is a radio presenter for RTÉ Radio 1.

The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson

Peter Rosser (1970–2014) was a composer, writer and music lecturer.

He was born in London and moved to Belfast in 1990, where he studied composition at the University of Ulster and was awarded a DPhil in 1997. His music has been performed at the Spitalfields Festival in London, the Belfast Festival at Queen’s and by the Crash Ensemble in Dublin.

In 2011 the Arts Council acknowledged his contribution to the arts in Northern Ireland through a Major Individual Artist Award. He used this award to write his Second String Quartet, which was premiered in 2012 by the JACK Quartet at the opening concert at Belfast's new Metropolitan Arts Centre (The MAC).

Peter Rosser also wrote extensively on a wide range of music genres, with essays published in The Journal of Music, The Wire, Perspectives of New Music and the Crescent Journal. 

He died following an illness on 24 November 2014, aged 44.

The Songs of Sandy Wright

Seán Ó Máille is a freelance critic, photographer and full-time secondary teacher in Dublin.

Fidil/3

Toner Quinn is Editor of the Journal of Music. His new book, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, is available here. Toner will be giving a lecture exploring some of the ideas in the book on Saturday 11 May 2024 at 3pm at Farmleigh House in Dublin. For booking, visit https://bit.ly/3x2yCL8.

Radar: Midem 2010

Bellowhead/Umbrellowhead

Stephen Graham is a lecturer in music at Goldsmiths, University of London. He blogs at www.robotsdancingalone.wordpress.com.

The Master

Tony MacMahon (1939–2021) was a traditional musician and television producer in RTÉ, where he produced The Pure Drop, The Green Linnet, Aisling Gheal, The Long Note, The Blackbird and the Bell and many other series. He made three solo recordings, Tony MacMahon (1972), MacMahon from Clare (2000), and Farewell to Music (2016) and recorded I gCnoc na Graí (1985) with Noel Hill and Aislingí Ceoil (1994) with Noel Hill and Iarla Ó Lionáird. Read our full obituary here: https://journalofmusic.com/news/rip-tony-macmahon

A Whole New Thing

Alice Echols is a cultural critic and historian. Her latest book is Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture (W.W Norton).

Ghost Story

Tim Lawrence is the author of Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973–92 and Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970–79.

The Diary of Yolanda Quartey

Obair le Déanamh

Breandán Ó hEaghra is a member of the contemporary Irish language group Rís and Director of Meas Media.

Of the Earth

New Books

Ensemble ICC

Ictus

Stephen Graham is a lecturer in music at Goldsmiths, University of London. He blogs at www.robotsdancingalone.wordpress.com.

Snakes and Ladders

Andrew Christopher Smith is a composer and pianist living in Brooklyn, New York.

Inbox

Of the Ether

Image from the Archive

Competitions

Online Radio Guide

Contemporary Music Centre

Irish Traditional Music Archive

Heather O'Donnell/Responses to Ives

Bob Gilmore (1961–2015) was a musicologist, educator and keyboard player. Born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, he studied at York University, Queen's University Belfast, and at the University of California. His books include Harry Partch: a biography (Yale University Press, 1998) and Ben Johnston: Maximum Clarity and other writings on music (University of Illinois Press, 2006), both of which were recipients of the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP. He wrote extensively on the American experimental tradition, microtonal music and spectral music, including the work of such figures as James Tenney, Horațiu Rădulescu, Claude Vivier, and Frank Denyer. Bob Gilmore taught at Queens University, Belfast, Dartington College of Arts, Brunel University in London, and was a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent. He was the founder, director and keyboard player of Trio Scordatura, an Amsterdam-based ensemble dedicated to the performance of microtonal music, and for the year 2014 was the Editor of Tempo, a quarterly journal of new music. His biography of French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was published by University of Rochester Press in June 2014. Between 2005 and 2012, Bob Gilmore published several articles in The Journal of Music.

Cian Ó Cíobháin/An Taobh Tuathail

Ian Wilson is a composer

Editorial: A Model Business

Toner Quinn is Editor of the Journal of Music. His new book, What Ireland Can Teach the World About Music, is available here. Toner will be giving a lecture exploring some of the ideas in the book on Saturday 11 May 2024 at 3pm at Farmleigh House in Dublin. For booking, visit https://bit.ly/3x2yCL8.

Oddbox: Painful to the Ear