Art has had an interesting history of both expressing the conventions of culture through folklore and rebelling against those conventions to create something revolutionary. It can both reinforce the envelope and push it.
Coming to the Chan Centre on Saturday, March 21 at 8 p.m. is just one demonstration of how art both pushes and forms cultural conventions.
Celtic Connections combines Celtic and Indian folk music. Zakir Hussain, a renowned Indian tabla player, has teamed up with Irish, English and Scottish musicians and percussionists to create something innovative.
“We haven’t created a new type of music here,” said John Joe Kelly, award-winning badhran player collaborating with Hussain on this project. “There are not new musical rhythms or new musical forms that we have composed together, but we have found a commonality between these sounds which are rarely played together.”
This project first began in 2011 with Hussain experimenting with the combination of Indian and Celtic musical styles. It was such a success in the United Kingdom that Hussain and his group were asked to perform at the London 2012 pre-Olympic performances.
“[The performance] is a fusion with all the different musical languages, sounds and flavours mixing with each other and creating a really exciting whole,” said Kelly.
The bodhran, played by Kelly, is an Irish drum, played with a short wooden stick. The tabla, played by Hussain, is two small hand drums each with its own timbre. Also featured in Celtic Connections are fiddles, flutes, Scottish pipers, a guitar and a bansuri (an Indian bamboo flute).
“We all still remain true to our traditions while obviously pushing boundaries in order to … find connection points and common ground between our repertoires through rhythm and melody,” said Kelly. Celtic Connections uses the tradition of folk music to create a new sound of music.
“The beauty of collaboration really is getting different musical brains in one room and working to find a common language,” said Kelly.
At one point in time, Celtic and Indian folk music might have seemed worlds apart. Now, however, they have been combined into something that is simultaneously traditional and innovative.
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