Masters of Tradition - Martin Hayes on keeping trad music alive

Festival Director Martin Hayes introduces this year's Masters of Tradition festival, celebrating the best of Irish and International traditional music, which takes place online from 29 September - 17 November.

In 2002 I started the Masters of Tradition Festival In Bantry House. A few years earlier, Dennis Cahill and I had been invited there to perform at the The West Cork Chamber Music Festival. I think there was some flavour in our music that allowed it to fit into this kind of environment.

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Listen: Martin Hayes talks about The Masters of Tradition festival on CountryWide

When we turned up at Bantry for the Chamber Festival there was a workshop organised for earlier in the day. I hadn't checked ahead and didn't know much about this festival or what it was all about. I presumed the the class was going to be to a group of adult students, probably from around West Cork, I was just going to talk and demonstrate ideas, they were never going to get a chance to play in the short amount of time allotted.

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Watch: Masters of Tradition 2021 - Martin Hayes introduces this year's festival

I just launched in and spoke with lots of authority, speaking philosophically about the purpose of music, how to engage with music, what it meant and how one ought to approach the playing of this instrument. I made lots of bold assertions and confidently delivered my ideas to what I thought was a room of adult beginner students. I would later discover that the room was filled with some of Europe’s finest chamber musicians. I can’t clearly remember whether I may have even expounded on some of the basics of tuning your instrument or not, all I know is that I didn’t hold back with any of my opinions.

Later that evening we played in the church in the Square in Bantry and lots of those same musicians where there again. The didn't seem to mind the boldness of all my assertions, instead, what I was hearing back from them was that they really enjoyed the freedom of how we played and improvised with this music.

We often hear traditional music in loud and noisy environments, but here was an opportunity to present it in a way that might allow its subtlety of feeling and expression to be more easily heard and experienced.

In the early Baroque Period musicians improvised with the music and didn’t always play exactly what was written - there was a lot more freedom for the musician in those times. Over time this tradition of improvisation in classical music had died out in favour a more disciplined adherence to the written note. After our performance Francis (Humphrys, Director of West Cork Music) approached me about creating a festival based on traditional music. The country seemed to be full of traditional music festivals, so I had to think about what we could add to the mix with one more festival.

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Watch: Neil Ó Lochlainn introduces the Immram concert at Masters of Tradition 2021

I imagined that with all of this newfound popularity there might actually now be enough of an audience for a festival that wanted to delve deeper into the core of the music. If the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, which was (and still is) run by Francis, could present chamber music in a respectful manner that honoured the subtlety and refinement of the music, maybe we could do the same with traditional music.

We often hear traditional music in loud and noisy environments, but here was an opportunity to present it in a way that might allow its subtlety of feeling and expression to be more easily heard and experienced. I wanted people to be able to hear the masters of this music up close in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere. When the sound is right, when the musicians are comfortable, when the audience are tuned in, and the ambience is conducive, then really great music can take place.

Watch: Christine Tobin, Francesco Turrisi and Phil Robson in Bantry House

I have been Artistic Director of The Masters of Tradition Festival for the past nineteen years and have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the finest performers of this music deliver some very special moments of music. We present core elements of traditional music but also feature collaborations that stretch in many directions. This was our nineteenth year, and we heard traditional music in its own right and also saw it intersecting with the worlds of jazz and classical music. These concerts were filmed in Bantry House and other beautiful locations throughout West Cork.

The 2021 Masters of Tradition festival is available online on demand from 29th September - 17th November 2021 - find out more here.