Irish Airs & Graces | Second Wellington Concert

**Second concert added due to high demand! If you missed out on tickets for our Irish Airs & Graces concert on Friday 14th March, then now is your chance to book and celebrate St Patrick's Day with us!**

This concert is generously supported by L.T. McGuinness.

Celebrate St Patrick's Day with Irish Airs & Graces. Following sell-out performances in Wellington and Auckland, this captivating concert blurs the boundaries between traditional Irish music and contemporary classical sounds.

Featuring the remarkable talents of Irish composer and guitarist Dave Flynn, the New Zealand String Quartet (NZSQ), and guest traditional Irish musicians, the programme breathes new life into Ireland’s iconic melodies, blending them with the expressive power of the string quartet. The "airs" highlight Ireland's celebrated lyrical tunes, while the "graces" showcase the intricate ornamentation that defines its traditional music. This collaboration beautifully intertwines the timeless and the contemporary, in a toe-tapping tribute to Celtic musical traditions.

Renowned for their artistic versatility, NZSQ thrives in cross-genre collaborations, bringing energy and depth to Flynn’s inspired compositions.

The bar at Whisky & Wood will be open during the concert. Doors will open from 6pm, so make sure to arrive early and grab a drink before the concert starts.

Whisky & Wood is located at Level 1, 60 Cambridge Terrace, above Sweet Axe Throwing. The space is wheelchair accessible. Please get in touch if you have any questions about accessibility: nzsq@nzsq.org.nz

Dave Flynn's participation in this concert is generously supported by Culture Ireland.

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CONCERT ORDER

Slip, for string quartet, by Dave Flynn

O’Carolan Suite, for guitar and string quartet. Arranged by Dave Flynn from melodies composed by Turlough O’Carolan

The Jockey at the Fair, for fiddle, accordion, guitar and string quartet. Trad arr. Flynn.

The Banks, for fiddle, accordion, guitar and string quartet. Arranged by Dave Flynn from a melody by Parazotti.

The Rebel Suite, for fiddle, accordion, guitar and string quartet. Arranged by Dave Flynn from melodies composed by John Dwyer, Finbarr Dwyer, Connie O’Connell and anonymous.

Interval - 10 minutes

Gone West, for string quartet, by Lauren Doherty.

An Irish Raga, for guitar and string quartet, by Dave Flynn.

Lilting and Reeling, for fiddle, accordion and string quartet, by Dave Flynn.

Rumba Reel, for fiddle, accordion, guitar and string quartet, by Dave Flynn.

Sketches of Aotearoa, for fiddle, accordion, guitar and string quartet, by Dave Flynn.

Lost in the Loop/Cat Chase Mouse, for fiddle, accordion, guitar and string quartet. Arranged by Dave Flynn from melodies composed by Liz Carroll and Máirtín O’Connor.

PROGRAMME NOTES

By Dave Flynn

This programme combines hundreds of years of traditional Irish music practices with the sound of a modern string quartet. The ‘airs’ represent the melodies, the ‘graces’ represent the ornamental elaboration techniques so distinctive of Irish traditional music. Modern compositions merge with arrangements of ‘classic’ traditional music, to create a concert that spans centuries of tradition and innovation.

The concert opens with the NZSQ alone, performing Slip, the first piece of mine they ever performed. It is the first movement of my String Quartet No.2 ‘The Cranning’, composed between 2004/2005. Slip mixes the sound of Irish fiddle playing from County Donegal within a contemporary, yet tonal, string quartet texture. Whilst an ‘Irish’ sound dominates, there are also influences from minimalism, jazz, Congolese rumba, Balkan folk and, at the end, heavy metal! The piece gets its title from a type of Irish jig, the slip jig, a dance so vigorous it was once banned by the Catholic Church!

By way of contrast, the Baroque harp music of blind harper Turlough O’Carolan brings us back towards Ireland’s ancient past, when harp music dominated musical life. O’Carolan fused the ancient Irish harp tradition with the Italian Baroque style of Corelli. This suite presents three of O’Carolan’s finest melodies, from his moving final ‘Farewell’ composition to perhaps his most beloved melody Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór (Fairy Mounds), and O’Carolan’s Concerto, which he composed to impress Dublin-based composer Geminiani, when the two had a famous meeting of mutual appreciation. In these arrangements my guitar represents O’Carolan’s harp, and the string quartet elaborates using baroque-like textures, with a modern twist.

Two 19th century tunes follow in arrangements I made for Irish fiddle, accordion, guitar and string quartet. The Jockey at the Fair is a type of tune known as a set-dance. It may seem like a medium-paced Irish jig, however there are an irregular number of bars in it, which indicate it was composed for an idiosyncratic dance by its anonymous composer. My arrangement brings out the trotting horse-like character of the tune.

The Banks was composed in 19th Century Scotland by a little-known Scottish-Italian composer/violinist called Parazotti. James Scott Skinner described it is a ‘classical hornpipe’, and its style is well suited to this classical/Irish trad collaboration. Despite the melodies’ seemingly classical-era leanings, it is a commonly played hornpipe within the Irish tradition.

The Rebel Suite is a celebration of music from Ireland’s largest county, Cork. The first movement features the distinctive Southern Irish polka style, common in Cork and Kerry. The Taur and Ballydesmond Polka No.1 are of unknown composer and date, but they are staples of the Irish tradition. The second movement is an arrangement of three reels composed by Cork composers John Dwyer, Finbarr Dwyer and Connie O’Connell. Whilst fiddle and accordion play the original melodies, the quartet and guitar accompany with a modern minimalist style. O’Connell’s exuberant reel ‘The Torn Jacket’, closes this suite, and the first half.

The second half begins again with the NZSQ alone, this time performing a modern work by Wellington composer Lauren Doherty.

Then, I rejoin with the NZSQ to perform An Irish Raga, a composition of mine which melds the sound of Indian Carnatic music with Irish trad. There is a lot of improvisation in this piece, reflecting the improv practices of India and Ireland.

The next piece, Lilting and Reeling is the third movement of The Cutting a work I composed for string quartet and traditional Irish musicians. The trad musicians play original Irish-style tunes I composed, with the quartet providing an undulating, polyrhythmic accompaniment that builds towards a web of sound that envelops the concluding reel.

Rumba Reel combines the worlds of Spanish flamenco and Irish reel rhythms. It begins with a solo flamenco guitar intro, which leads into a slow-air style iteration of the main melody, which gradually builds to a fiery, furious flamenco-filled finale.

Then we reach a world premiere, the first performance of my latest work Sketches of Aotearoa, in which I blend the sounds of Ireland and New Zealand. The piece is in four connected movements, each inspired by my travels around New Zealand. The Journey opens the piece with a driving rhythm and quartet sounds inspired by New Zealand birdsong. Tui, korimako/bellbird and rirororo/grey warbler are among the tuneful birds that populate this opening section, and return with other birds in short interludes between movements. The Journey was literally composed on the road and it reflects the feeling of driving around New Zealand’s beautiful landscapes. Wither Hills Vines, is in the style of an Irish hornpipe, and it is a piece I composed after visiting this beautiful vineyard in Blenheim. The next movement Makorori Surf was composed for the birthday of a good friend of my wife and I called Ninja. She loves to surf at Makorori Beach near Gisborne and this piece gives the feeling of surfing on undulating waves. The Hare in the Vineyard ends the suite with a type of tune I call a clipped slide. The Irish ‘slide’ dance is usually in 12/8, this piece clips off one beat to create a slide-style tune in the complex rhythm of 11/8. I composed this piece after seeing numerous hares leaping about among Marlborough vineyards. This lends a suitably upbeat, fast finale to my Sketches of Aotearoa.

We end the ‘Irish Airs and Graces’ concert with two modern Irish reels composed by two legends of modern Irish music. Lost in the Loop is an aptly titled three-part reel by Chicago-born fiddle virtuoso Liz Carroll. My arrangement brings out the sentiment of the title, adding looping quartet sounds to Carroll’s infectious reel. Galway accordion wizard Máirtín O’Connor’s Cat Chase Mouse is also aptly titled and my arrangement builds in intensity as O’Connor’s ingenious melody warps and wefts to head-spinning conclusion.

MUSICIANS

New Zealand String Quartet

                Peter Clark – Violin

                Gillian Ansell – Viola

                Monique Lapins – Guest Violin

                Robert Ibell – Guest Cello

Dave Flynn – Guitar & Concert Curator

Em Griffiths – Irish Fiddle

Duncan Davidson - Accordion