The Blooming Meadows
A book by Fintan Vallely, Nutan, Charlie Pigott
Text of interviews by Piggott & Vallely, color and B/W photographs by Nutan
The book is first glance a visual presentation of outstandingly warm, quirky and personality-laden pictures by photographer Nutan. In sympathy with the typical slow fuse of his work, the moods and themes of these images are developed into personalities, lives, community and nation by biography, interview, objective comment and poetry/song quotation. The voices are of musicians and singers, they who have shaped the revival of Traditional music since the nineteen fifties; there is a sprinkle there of today's generation of talented, articulate and often highly-educated players. The overview is from the inside, but also looks back over the shoulder at the musician and music-lover placed - anachronistically - in an information-age society, among Pop music market forces and technology, yet performing unaccompanied song from before the age of steam, eighteenth-century social dance, acoustic melody-making on music that may be older than the pianoforte or as young as the microchip. Nostalgia, Nationalism, Romanticism, virtuosity and communitas here meet art and quiet confidence in cultural meaning.
Content
Theme: detailed prose-style interviews with 30 musicians, singers, dancers etc., mostly Irish Born, a wide age spread, based in Ireland, England and US, professional and non-professionals:
Begley Brendan, Bergin Mary, Broderick, Vincent, Burke, Joe and Anne Conroy, Campbell, Vincent, Canny, Paddy, Carroll, Liz, Cooley, Joe, Devenney, Seamus, Farr, Lucy, Graham, Len and Padraigín Ní Uallacháin, Hastings, Gary, Hayes, martin, Horan, Peter, Keane, Tommy and Jacqui McCarthy, Keenan, Paddy, Lennon, Ben, MacMahon, Tony, Mulligan Neilidh, Mulqueen, Anne, Ní Cheannabháin, Treasa and Róisín, Ní Dhómhnaill Maighread, Ní; Mhaonaigh Mairéad, O'Leary, Johnny, O'Loughlin, Peadar, O'Neill, Sarah Anne, Russell, Micho, Shannon, Sharon, Sherlock, Roger, Vallely, Brian and Eithne,
90 pictures, b/w and color; articles c. 2000 words per interview.
ISBN 1-86059-067-5
hardback, 204pp, color and b/w photography
Cost £IR 16.99
Paperback (June 1999) IR£13.9
Published by Townhouse & Country House, Trinity House, Charleston Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6, Ireland. Tel 01 497 2399, Fax 497 0927
email: books@townhouse.ie
Distributed in Ireland by Gill and Macmillan, Goldenbridge, Inchicore, Dublin 8,
Tel. 01 453 1005, Fax 454 1688; Britain and Europe by Airlift Book Co. 0181 8040 400, fax 8040 044; email info@airlift.co.uk
USA & Canada distributed by Roberts Rinehart, 6309 Monarch Park Place, Niwot, Colorado, 80503. Tel 303 652 2685, Fax 303 652 2689
Launched in the Harcourt Hotel, Dublin at 6.30 PM, Wed. 28 October, 199
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