Music & Light - Photographs by Tony Kearns

Since its inception in 1973 The Willie Clancy Summer School has been a hugely important event in the traditional Irish music world. Named in honour of the revered uilleann piper Willie Clancy and held every July in his home town of Miltown Malbay in County Clare, the Summer School has been a Mecca for thousands of great musicians, singers and dancers who gather to draw from the well of traditional Irish musical culture. Thousands more flock to Miltown to attend the classes, lectures and recitals and to play in & listen to the many sessions that spring up in the locality. This book is a celebration of the Summer School by a photographer who has dedicated himself to documenting its activities and its participants in a lively and sympathetic way. An archivist by nature, Tony Kearns is also inspired by the visual possibilities and compositions that present themselves naturally when people gather to play music together. Working in formal and spontaneous situations, he attempts to convey the moods, personalities and complexities of the musicians and their music in his timeless black & white images.