Irish researchers will exhibit and demonstrate
prehistoric instruments of Ireland at the University of California,
Berkeley's Morrison Hall, Room 125, on Tuesday, March 19,
from 5-7 p.m.
Instruments will include a replica of the long, twisting Iron Age trumpet called the Trumpa Créda and a 6.5-foot Mayo bassoon found in 1791 and made from willow, with bronze spiraling along its length.
Simon O'Dwyer and Maria Cullen O'Dwyer of County Galway, Ireland, will discuss the various instruments and demonstrate how they were played in the Iron and Bronze ages, when their loud blasts were used during wartime to intimidate opponents. Practical research over the last 15 years has uncovered information about the musical qualities of these instruments, allowing many of them to be played for the first time.
The event is being sponsored by UC Berkeley's Celtic Studies, Music Department, Archaeological Research Facility, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Townsend Center, Folklore Studies and Celtic Graduate Students' Association.
To see images of some of the instruments and listen to them being played, visit the O'Dwyers' Web site at www.prehistoricmusic.com. After the demonstration, from 7-8 p.m., students and others will examine the instruments more closely.
