Fintan Vallely

Fintan Vallely is a musician and writer on traditional music. From Co. Armagh, he has taught flute at the Willie Clancy Summer School in Co. Clare since 1986, and was the author of the first tutor for Irish flute - Timber, the Flute Tutor - in 1986. This book is being reissued during 2008 in a new, expanded form as The Irish Flute Tutor, published by Walton's, the leaders in teaching manuals for Irish music. His other books include The Blooming Meadows (a collaboration with Charlie Piggott and photographer Nutan), Together in Time (a biography of Antrim flute player John Kennedy), and a major reference work, the edited, A-Z Companion to Irish Traditional Music (1999). This book is currently being revised for a new edition in 2009. Also coming out in addition to The Irish Flute Tutor in 2008 is his Tuned Out - Traditional Music and Identity in Northern Ireland, and a satirical song collection titled Sing Up! Irish Comic Songs and Satires for Every Occasion .

He features on several albums, with a solo recording in 1979 with Shanachie, USA (re-issued in 2008) Irish Traditional Music on Concert Flute, and another in 1992, The Starry Lane to Monaghan. I in 2000 an album of satirical song with singer Tim Lyons was produced, and an album of his own music compositions - Dark Loanen - is due in 2009.

He is currently lecturer in Traditional music at Dundalk Institute of Technology. There he is also supervising research in Traditional music undertaken by several highly regarded musicians including Gerry O'Connor, Jesse Smith, Jacinta McEvoy, Oisin Mac Diarmada, Seosamh O Neachtain and Sean McElwain. A major emphasis of the overall research programme which Fintan Vallely is directing through the concluding years of this decade is an investigation of the association of Traditional music development, popularization and globalisation with Popular music aesthetics and promotion.