Tonight should have been the evening for the
Sean-Nós concert. It usually takes place on the Thursday of Scoil Shamhraidh and is orchestrated by Gearoidín. But this year Liam summarily cancelled the sean-nós and in its place had a sean-nós choir give a performance instead. The choir was pretty good, three part harmonies with men’s and women’s voices. Gearoidín was scathing about the idea of a sean-nós choir. I think she was also very upset by Liam’s lack of respect for all the work she has done to keep the sean-nós tradition alive. And rightly so. Every year she assembles a dwindling number of truly great practitioners of the art to pass on the tradition. This year it didn’t happen and perhaps it will never happen again.
That being said, the choir (Cór Thaobh a’ Leithid) were very good. The sean-nós class also performed two of our songs. Gearoidín sang two songs and there was also a performance of Donegal dancers. A Scottish man, Griogair Labhruid, sang a sean-nós version of an Irish song, “Áirde Chuain”.
2 comments:
Hello Mr. M.,
Pardon my ignorance but what is the difference between the Sean-Nos concert as it was going to be and having the choir perform? I'm very curious about this.
I've just returned from a lovely visit and will be adding some of my own photos of Montsoreau soon.
Good question!
Sean-nós proper is highly individualistic, usually being sung (rather than performed) by one person who interprets the poem/song in a very personal way. Occasionally, family members sing together or two very close people will sing a song together but that is rare.
Choral singing by definition cannot be sean-nós since it requires the interpretation of the songs by a single individual who directs how the choir members sing. The songs are part of the corpus of sean-nós but it is in the performance that it becomes something else entirely.
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