Like its subject matter, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin: A Life in Music, is an impressive, imposing, multi-layered, and impossible to circumscribe book; in my engagement with it, I began to think of it as ‘Eighty-seven short pieces about Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin’, following the similarly titled 1993 documentary film about Glenn Gould. Rather than trying to achieve a comprehensive and completist study of his life and work, the chapters instead briefly illuminate different facets of the remarkable contribution that Ó Súilleabháin made to musical life in Ireland. This was effected through his various roles as a pianist, composer, academic, advocate, and perhaps above all as a visionary: he imagined how music could be in academia; he created an academy in the University of Limerick based on that vision; and he enacted his convictions about music in performance and composition. Central to his work was his ability to communicate, collaborate and inspire people: as Helen Phelan’s introduction notes, he believed that ‘our truest selves grow and emerge through engagement with others’. Engagement is at the heart of the book, as most of the contributors had a direct connection with him, and write from a particular perspective: each piece views or contemplates the subject from a different aspect. Encompassing all of these viewpoints in a review would be impractical, so what is offered here is similarly a contemplation of the book from my particular perspective, coloured by my own encounters with Mícheál’s work and music. 

The primary force behind the volume is Helen Phelan, professor and director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, and wife of Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, who passed away in 2018. Her co-editors are Nicholas Carolan, director emeritus of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, and Marie McCarthy, professor of music education at the University of Michigan. The volume’s three sections correspond to Ó Súilleabháin’s three main strands of activity: the musician, the educator and the cultural mediator. The first two sections felt the most coherent, although the nature of Ó Súilleabháin’s activities means that there are inevitable overlaps, with, for example, discussions of his compositions and performances found across all three of the sections. The book begins with a biography written by Phelan, enriched by generous quotations from interviews and other sources, which allow Ó Súilleabháin’s voice to shine through. It is most insightful and revelatory on his eclectic early musical upbringing and education, which encompassed rock, folk, classical and traditional music. It underlines the impression Seán Ó Riada and Aloys Fleischmann made on him during his music studies at University College Cork; while the text suggests that Fleischmann was the primary influence on Ó Súilleabháin, the continuing shadow of Ó Riada (and the aura of his death mask) is palpable throughout the book. There are obvious parallels between the two, not least in their similar dynamic and persuasive personalities, and in their identities as lecturers, keyboard players and composers. But key to all three figures – and one of the tenets of Ó Súilleabháin that Phelan is keen to press home – is their role as mediators. This is most obviously and primarily between different musical traditions, but in Ó Súilleabháin’s case it extends to other areas of culture as well. 

Ó Súilleabháin (right) with The Sea Cliffs, 1960s.

University College Cork graduation class in 1972: Ó Súilleabháin and Nóirín Ní Riain (back row, right) with Aloys Fleischmann (front row, centre).

The musician
The opening section of the book – prefaced by Nicholas Carolan – reflects on Ó Súilleabháin as a musician. It is dominated by the voices of those who were involved with performances of his music – musicians, singers and conductors – as well as others involved with labels, commissioning and organisations. The first essays illustrate the amazing productiveness and diversity of his early period as a musician. Paddy Glackin discusses how instrumental Ó Súilleabháin was in opening out the tradition in the 1970s. His work on chant is recalled by Nóirín Ní Riain, who mentions his interest in ‘musical repertoires which predated or had been marginalised by the colonial monopoly of classical literate musical notation’. Declan Colgan and Máire Nic Fhinn provide insights into Ó Súilleabháin the recording artist, Nic Fhinn suggesting that his output was shaped by a desire for a wider audience: ‘Bhí a aigne casta i dtreo na margaí tráchtála idirnáisiúnta faoin am seo’. The Dolphin’s Way most clearly represents this shift in direction in Ó Súilleabháin’s music, and marked the beginning of a fruitful relationship with the record label Venture, which Colgan was managing. 

It also heralded the crystallisation of Ó Súilleabháin’s piano style, and a new engagement with jazz and improvisation, which Kenneth Edge writes about here. In retrospect this seemed to be a musical cul-de-sac, as the ensuing Hiberno-Jazz project never seemed to coalesce into anything concrete, although Edge argues that improvisation remained a part of his scores. Martin Hayes and Iarla Ó Lionáird attest to the forward-looking nature of his music, and its refusal to be restricted by limiting dogmas or out-dated binaries. Hayes’ interpretation of his music as being grounded ‘in a philosophical view that embraced both old and new ideas, ideas around pushing boundaries while simultaneously embracing the deepest elements of the tradition’, underscores how pathbreaking an approach this was in the 1970s, and how it has become a recurrent – if not dominant – trope in the traditional arts since then. One of the standout pieces of the first section is David Brophy’s, written as it is from the conductor’s perspective, with insights into the rehearsal and performance of the orchestral pieces. 

With Bobby McFerrin and Iarla Ó Lionáird (Photo: Maurice Gunning)

Toner Quinn’s reflections on the neglect of Ó Súilleabháin as a composer is exceptional for not being grounded in personal experience, and insightfully posits that ‘understanding the influence of Potts is key to appreciating the composer’s work’. Although brief, it spurred me to re-engage with the compositions; while at times I would agree that his approach to composition is ‘about expressing, through classical forces, innovation and creativity in traditional melody’, it seems that in many of the orchestral pieces (like Heartwork and the more famous Oileán), there is more usually a juxtaposition between the deployment of classical forces and the creative interpretation of the tune. It is a pity that Quinn’s article is not complemented by one which critiques Ó Súilleabháin as a performer and recording artist: while his performances were very much tied to his compositional work (as Harry White later discusses), the first part of his career (up to and including The Dolphin’s Way) centred on the interpretation and reworking of traditional material. While there are several mentions of him recreating the piano as a traditional instrument, there is scant discussion of this (excepting to an extent the articles by White and Owen Ó Súilleabháin mentioned later).  

With dancer and choreographer Colin Dunne (Photo: Maurice Gunning)

The educator
Substantial enough to have formed a volume in itself, the section on his contribution as an educator brings together the voices of those who studied under him (and later often worked with him); those involved in the formation of the Irish World Academy; current and former course directors; and international scholars who reflect on his influence on music education. 

With striking auto-ethnographic candour, Mel Mercier writes both of his time as a student at UCC, and his musical partnership with Ó Súilleabháin, delving into the collaborative compositional process of (must be more) Crispy. Counterintuitive though it might seem, Ó Súilleabháin learnt the tabla-influenced rhythms of the piece on the mbira before transposing these to the piano. Employing ethnomusicological methods, Sandra Joyce grounds her chapter in recent ethnographic surveys with students who attended UCC during his time there. The results emphasise the ‘parity of esteem’ he created for traditional music – before this, traditional musicians were not accepted onto performance programmes. Ó Súilleabháin was also instrumental in opening up the tradition to students who did not primarily play traditional music, and Joyce herself notes how he validated it as an area for her. The responses also emphasise how novel his advocacy of ethnomusicology was at this time. Liz Doherty and Niall Vallely similarly benefitted from his transformation of UCC in the 1990s. Doherty’s piece is deeply personal and underlines how Ó Súilleabháin transformed her career; he ‘generated spark after spark, left each one out there burning, and anyone who wished to do so was invited to pick them up and see where they lead them’. Vallely echoes this in describing how he gave students more responsibilities, and cemented a deep relationship between the university and the wider traditional music community. 

The papers exploring the foundation of the academy and the creation of its many courses are more mixed, and I found that many tended to lapse into rather rote institutional histories, combined with personal history and achievements. Nonetheless, they are a reminder of Ó Súilleabháin’s striking ability to identify lacunae in third-level music education, to connect with experts and emerging talents in these fields, and to convince them to establish new and sustaining programmes, some of which remain unique in Ireland. These include music therapy, community music, ethnochoreology, dance performance, songwriting, and classical string performance. 

The opening chapter in this section shines a welcome light on how this was facilitated by a remarkable level of funding provided by Chuck Feeney and Atlantic Philanthropies, without which the Irish World Academy building would not have been built. It also gives a rare insight into the politics of academia and the machinations around Ó Súilleabháin’s move to Limerick in the 1990s. Margaret O’Sullivan’s description of the Toyota Performing Arts Initiative, which ran from 1995 to 2000, further emphasises the astonishing level of funding that UL received: the £500,000 provided by Toyota would in itself transform many departments today. There is a broader message here for those funding both higher education and the arts in Ireland, as this journal has frequently proclaimed. 

With Catherine Foley at the Irish World Academy (Photo: Maurice Gunning)

Receiving an honorary doctorate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2017, with Helen and Luke Phelan.

Many of the articles highlight the centrality of praxis to the academy, which runs throughout undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (although oddly there is no article focusing on the innovative PhD in Arts Practice programme). As Margaret O’Sullivan comments, the academy allowed for ‘attention to the many dimensions of being in music and in the world that are part of an artistic encounter in the present moment’. Ó Súilleabháin’s grounding in ethnomusicology was arguably central to this; John Morgan O’Connell draws attention to the cycle of experience, reflection and interpretation which he posits is central to the academic study of performance practice. His essay is one of the few to reflect more critically on the direction that the academy has taken, expressing his unease with ‘a Performance Academy (using upper case) where music and dance were studied practically following the musical principles of “classical” excellence’, and his fear that ‘the spectacular [is] now being preferred to the special, with significant consequences for the development of a national ethnomusicology in Ireland’. 

A similarly reflexive approach is evident in Niall Keegan’s exploration of the challenges of bringing traditional and vernacular music into a university setting. It draws connections between the debates around tradition and innovation that erupted in the wake of River of Sound and Riverdance, and the perception that universities and academies introduce change into traditional musics. Addressing these, Keegan outlines how the academy’s programmes focus on the development of an individual artistic traditional voice, as well as constantly interfacing with the broader (non-academic) community through the traditional musicians who teach in the academy. 

This section of the book concludes with some contributions from international scholars who reflect on how Ó Súilleabháin influenced music education more broadly. The weakest section of the book, these essays were often quite broad and general in their approach, sometimes over-concentrating on personal reminiscences, at other times bordering on the platitudinous. Two which stood out were Regina Murphy’s exploration of his influence on music curriculum development, describing his scholarship, teaching and research as transmodal, and identifying that his leadership (both institutional and symbolic) was as impactful as any of the other roles that he inhabited. The final piece by Marie McCarthy is also more analytical in its discussion of four key aspects of Ó Súilleabháin’s contribution to music education: his holistic conception of music, which moved away from more binary approaches (e.g. theory and practice); his inclusivity; his embracing of the global and the local; and his engagement with the wider traditional community. 

With Colm Murphy and Mel Mercier – a publicity photo for the album The Dolphin’s Way in 1987.

Mediator
The final section of the book grapples with the idea of Ó Súilleabháin as a cultural mediator. It is an assortment of research, reflections and memoirs, which explore different facets of this mediation (or perhaps his work’s interdisciplinary nature), including the Irish language, film, television, and most substantially, poetry (making up almost a quarter of the contributions from chapters 52 to 73). 

John O’Flynn provides a comprehensive overview of his writings, which usefully traces the different thematic threads that emerge from this body of work: these include the nature of Irish music and Irish musical identity, music education, and ethnomusicological approaches to style, interpretation and creativity in traditional music, with a special focus on the music of Tommie Potts, the subject of his PhD research. A few articles in this section present new research that aligns with Ó Súilleabháin’s thinking and practice. Méabh Ní Fhuartháin considers the figure of the ‘musical priest’ in American musical films, particularly as played by Bing Crosby. Drawing together discourses on Irish diasporic music and Irish-American popular song, she reveals how the central song of Going My Way evokes the loss and pain of emigration, but is also symbolic of an Irish-American identity that has become integrated within a broader, universal American identity. Cathal Goan reconsiders the roots and history of the word ‘planxty’, which was strongly associated with the harper-composer Turlough Carolan, and which Goan suggests might have been coined by him or his circle to describe a toccata-like harp piece, coming from the relatively recent word ‘planc’ (to strike).

One of the few authors to consider his piano playing and his distinctive performative voice, Owen Ó Súilleabháin writes of his father as a ‘musical mediator’ in his bridging of different musical worlds. Exploring three modalities of this mediation, he argues how Ó Súilleabháin’s musicking did not just reflect the changing Ireland of his times, but also helped to reveal ‘new and emerging collective identities’. His commentary on ‘Oíche Nollag’ from The Dolphin’s Way provides fresh insights into the piece, identifying the rock origins of the parallel chords that open the piece, and which then give way to a juxtaposition of traditional virtuousity (on a classical instrument) with jazz solos and riffs. Listening again to the recording also highlighted a connection between the opening syncopated octaves and the repeated chord (or ‘drone’) that accompanies the turn of the tune. 

The final two contributions begin a conversation about how Ó Súilleabháin’s legacy might be assessed and contextualised. Fintan Vallely convincingly points out that thanks to his initiatives and influence, ‘it is now study, if not a degree, that is almost the norm in traditional music’. Just as Vallely describes himself as being nudged into academic study, the fact that most universities now have lecturers whose identity is based in traditional music undoubtedly stems from this same initial nudge. Harry White returns to the subject of the opening section (as per the cyclical nature of traditional tunes) in a stimulating reconsideration of Ó Súilleabháin’s compositions and compositional processes. Reflecting on the primacy of listening in Ó Súilleabháin’s worldview, and recognising the interdependency of his identity as concert artist and composer, White considers that the composer engaged in ‘composition as supremely skilful representation’, grounded in a process of ‘listening to and thereby improvising upon a pre-existent music’. This focus on variation, on reworking extant material, and on his idiolectic pianism leads to a provocative claim by White; that Ó Súilleabháin’s albums do not function as a body of original invention, instead resisting categorisation as finished works. 

In summary, the book mirrors its subject’s protean interests, drawing together disparate voices from an impressively diverse range of disciplines, and giving valuable insight into the vast range of projects Ó Súilleabháin was involved in and initiated. A downside to this breadth of voices is that there is an overabundance of thematic echoes, resonances and repetitions; too many authors are allowed to recapitulate similar narrative fragments and information. A more positive feature is its richness in first-hand reminiscences and memories of Ó Súilleabháin. It may be true, as Helen Phelan points out, that it is too early for a comprehensive and critical study of Ó Súilleabháin’s life and music; as a result, the book is more hagiographical and celebratory of its subject, and, few exceptions aside, there is little developed or sustained critique of his work. That said, it is a fine testament to the immense contribution Ó Súilleabháin made to music in Ireland and will no doubt be an important source for later scholars and an inspiration for musicians and educators, both in Ireland and further afield.    

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin – A Life in Music, edited by Helen Phelan, Marie McCarthy and Nicholas Carolan, is published by Cork University Press. Visit www.corkuniversitypress.com.

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