PATRONS MSG
A message from our 2010 Festival Patron - Stephen Rea
I am very proud to be involved with the Temple Bar TradFest as it celebrates its fifth year. Since its inception, Temple Bar TradFest has been an ambitious and broad-ranging national event, not only firming up Dublin’s reputation as the great traditional music centre we know it is, but also providing a focus for traditional music nationally and internationally, where musicians and listeners from home and abroad can join together, meet and play.
This year, the vision of new Festival Programmer Kieran Hanrahan has given the festival a rich perspective, one that is based on decades of being involved at the heart of Irish musical life. Bringing together such a broad range of musicians and singers – those at the cutting-edge of new sounds in traditional music as well as legends who put this music on the international map in the first place – gives the listener a rare opportunity to hear the full width and breadth of this art form.
These are difficult economic times for contemporary Ireland, but traditional music has seen times like this before. It lifted us in the past, and it will continue to sustain us in the future. Our diverse and vibrant traditional music culture, which every person on this island can enjoy, is our advantage on the world stage. Engage with it and it can nourish and inspire you.
I have long been a deep admirer of traditional music and song, and am looking forward greatly to hearing some of my favourite artists in this year’s TradFest. It is a testimony to the success and immense popularity of the festival, as well as the deep musical need for it in Dublin and Ireland generally, that it is expanding in these difficult times, providing an even wider range of activities and entertainments for adults and children alike.
I would like to formally welcome you to the festival and I wish you a wonderful five days of thrilling music, inspired song and a long-lasting engagement with the treasure that is Irish culture.
Stephen Rea
Back to TradFest's 2007 Patron's Message
Back to TradFest's 2008 Patron's Message
Back to TradFest's 2009 Patron's Message
