Matt Cranitch:




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Matt Cranitch is something of a renaissance man in the realm of Irish traditional music: player, scholar, exponent, teacher, writer. With a long history of tunes under his belt, having played with Na Filí, Any Old Time, and currently Sliabh Notes, Matt is also the author of The Irish Fiddle Book, one of the most useful and comprehensive instructional texts available to beginning students of the music. It was that book that got me on the right path with my bowing after some initial misadventures, and that I recommend to all of my serious students now. It's a rare combination -- someone who's able to both play the music with great skill and swing, and someone who's able to analyze as a scholar.

A Senior Research Scholar for the past year, with support from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Matt is at work on a dissertation looking at the music of his beloved Sliabh Luachra in greater detail. We met at his home in County Cork on a lovely afternoon this past winter.

Matt Cranitch:
I grew up in the little village of Rathduff in County Cork, midway between Cork City and Mallow. Both my parents were teachers and taught in the local primary school, or national school, so they taught me at some stage. My father Mícheál played the accordion and the fiddle and sang a bit as well. My mother Kathleen sang. And my grandfather on my father's side, whose name was also Matt, was a melodeon player and a stepdancer. Now I never remember him playing, as he died when I was too young, but certainly I was aware that this was the case. When I was maybe seven my parents got me a fiddle and the plan was that my father would teach me. But the lessons tended to take the form that he'd play the fiddle and have me sit down and listen to him; so they decided to send me to the Cork School of Music instead. I went there when I was eight to learn what's called classical violin, and I continued with that and playing traditional music at home, both those activities in parallel. By my mid-teens I opted for the traditional playing and gave up the classical lessons. So that would have been my early development.