Crispy - Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin & The Irish Chamber Orchestra, 1992 

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Mel Mercier and the Irish Chamber Orchestra with a performance of ‘Crispy’.
Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and Mel Mercier are joined by the Irish Chamber Orchestra to perform ‘Crispy’ a piece the University College Cork colleagues composed together.
The track is taken from Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin’s latest album ‘Gaiseadh Flowing’, and he admits that it is a difficult piece to perform, but,
When musicians start enjoying themselves it’s time to go home, in a way.
In recent years the UCC music department has changed entry requirements, and now accepts undergraduate students from traditional music as well as classical backgrounds. This has happened with the full support of all staff members.
It’s the institutions that have the problem, and it creates its own tradition, and that has to be broken through.
This new approach has worked very well, with students learning just as much from each other as from the strictly academic side of the course.
There are a lot of misconceptions and preconceptions broken down.
Labour Party member Gerry Curran who is on the studio panel asks Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin about how he composes music. Poetry inspires him, but in the case of ‘Crispy’ Mel Mercier began with the rhythm,
It’s really an Indian rhythmic composition.
This episode of The Late Late Show was broadcast on 27 November 1992. The presenter is Gay Byrne.