2:30pm | 2 Royal Avenue, Belfast | Free Event

Edward Bunting – his life, our musical inheritance and a rich legacy to be explored.

Armagh-born Bunting, a young pianist and church organist in Belfast, was employed to collect the tunes played at the 1792 Assembly of itinerant harpers, a dying breed. As author, editor and arranger, Bunting oversaw three important collections of Irish airs; he promoted ‘classical’ concerts; he even briefly ‘sponsored’ a resident organ-builder and harp maker in the town.

For a long time, he harboured great resentment towards Thomas Moore who had ‘borrowed’ many of Bunting’s collected airs.

Eventually he became a church organist in Dublin, where, for a time, he was also a partner in a Dublin music warehouse. After his death he was accused of gross deception and being a purveyor of ‘harmonic crudities’. Guilty as charged?

Crescent Arts Centre
2-4 University Road
Belfast
BT7 1NH

Ph: 028 9024 2338