West Ocean String Quartet
Composer Neil Martin on Belfast Mela project and musical inspirations
ON HOLIDAY on Cruit Island, just off Donegal's coast, noted Belfast-born composer Neil Martin is working on a piece to be premiered during this year's Mela festival.
Trad/Roots: Autumn trad highlights for the 'hear and now'
WELL, the four-day summer has finally come to an end and people are returning from their foreign holidays on the Costas or their caravan in Millisle or their trip to the Gaeltacht ready to get stuck into the many activities which start up again in the autumn.
Neil Martin: I'm rather used to the solitary existence of sitting at home alone at the piano, though I've fallen out with Joe Wicks
1. Up and at it - what is your new morning routine? How has it changed? I have always tended not to rise too early as I often compose late into the night, so I'm usually up around eight o'clock or 8.
Trad/roots: The breathtaking sounds of West Ocean String Quartet's Atlantic Edge
ON A visit to a holiday resort in the summer of 1904 the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók overheard a young nanny, Lidi Dósa from Kibéd in Transylvania, sing folk songs to the children in her care.