MUSIC FROM POPLAR HILL

JAMES MARTIN’S
TYRE ISLE BAND:
Traditional Music of Ireland,
Scotland, England and the Hebrides

Concert on November 8, 2024
7:30PM

Music lovers experience a wide array of musical styles at Music from Poplar Hill concerts and educational programs…

…including music of cultures from around the world. This November, JAMES MARTIN arrives with his TYRE ISLE BAND. These amazing musicians live and breathe the folk music of the British Isles, delving deeply into the original melodies and rhythms and adding to the living repertoire with music they have composed in that beloved tradition.
Tyre Isle Band, created by James Martin, plays the traditional dance tunes and ballads from Ireland, Scotland, England and the Hebrides. With Tatayana Gorbunova on flute, the internationally celebrated accordionist Will Holshouser, and Mr. Martin on mandolin, guitar, mandocello, banjo and vocals, the Trye Isle Band reimagines the dance tunes, ballads and Irish Sean-nós tradition of the British Isles. The band continues Mr. Martin’s work touring the US and Canada with the earlier critically acclaimed traditional British isles band called How to Change a Flat Tire. Mr. Martin’s discography includes “A Point of Departure” and “The Traditional Music of Shetland and Ireland” on Front Hall Records.
            An accomplished dancer, choreographer and filmmaker as well as musician, Mr. Martin was Associate Arts Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Dance Department for from 1989--2023. He has taught at schools and festivals throughout the world including the Mark Morris Monnaie Dance Group in Brussels, the Ballet Academy of Stockholm, the Dansen Hus in Copenhagen, the Université du Québec à Montréal, the Bat Dor School in Tel Aviv, the National Institute of the Arts in Taiwan, the American Dance Festival, The Juilliard School, Princeton University, Wesleyan University, Tulane University, James Madison University, Spectrum Dance School, Seattle and the White Mountain Dance Festival.  He has danced with Donald Byrd/The Group, Gus Solomons jr, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Company, Claire Porter, Jamie Cunningham and Tina Croll, Heidi Latsky, The New York Baroque Dance Company and The Connecticut Ballet Company among others.
            Mr. Martin’s film Under the Whale received official selection from numerous film festivals, won the American Filmatic Arts 2019 Grand Jury Award for Experimental Documentary and was nominated for best director and best experimental documentary by the 2020 Oregon Documentary Film Festival.  The film was made from a dance piece performed by twenty-nine dancers of the Sophomore class of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts located in Astoria Queens, NY. The film embraces multi dance forms through a narrative that dovetails climate change and social justice with current youth movement’s raised voices for gun control. The transcript for the film comprised text by James Martin and excerpts from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.