Lost in Transcription

Reading Bunting

A Talk & Recital with Gráinne Meyer, Laoise Kelly and Ensemble

Much of what survives of the old Irish harp repertoire comes from the notebooks Edward Bunting filled during the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival.

Over three days, the festival brought together ten Irish harpers, with Bunting, a classically trained organist, tasked with writing down the music they played. The transcriptions he produced remain the principal source for much of the old harp tradition and have profoundly shaped how this music has been interpreted and understood ever since.

But how faithful were these transcriptions, and how should we read them today?

Any notation that fixes pitch and rhythm inevitably loses something of the nuance, flexibility and ornamentation of a musical tradition that was never conceived in purely written form.

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What Can Notation Capture?

Join Gráinne Meyer, Laoise Kelly and ensemble for a fascinating talk and recital exploring the possibilities and limitations of Bunting's transcriptions.

Through performance, discussion and musical demonstration, the event will examine what notation can preserve, what it leaves behind, and how musicians today engage with a living, improvised tradition through the written record.

A unique exploration of the relationship between memory, notation and the living tradition of Irish harp music.