IAC Commissions: Dirk Powell and Mike McGoldrick

“A treasured sideman steps to the light.”—The Advocate, on the release of Powell’s new album

Dirk Powell is a musician with deep roots in several rural American traditions. He learned banjo and fiddle from his Kentucky grandfather, James Clarence Hay, and has been a part of the thriving Cajun/Creole music community in Louisiana since his early 20s. He has toured and recorded with musicians including Eric Clapton, Joan Baez, Buddy Miller, Jack White, Loretta Lynn and Levon Helm, and worked in film with directors Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain), Ang Lee (Ride with the Devil), and Spike Lee (Bamboozled). He has released solo albums, and owns his own production studio on the banks of Bayou Teche near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. His latest recording, When I Wait For You, was released in September 2020.

Photo credit: David McClister

“One of the greatest flute players in the world.”—BBC Music

Mike McGoldrick, from Manchester, England, is a multi-instrumentalist (wooden flute, low whistles, uilleann pipes) and composer. He has worked with artists including Vicente Amigo, Zac Brown Band, Xosé Manuel Budiño, Jerry Douglas, Julie Fowlis, Darrell Scott Nolwenn Leroy, Tim O’Brien, Dirk Powell and Kate Rusby, and has played with Mark Knopfler since 2009 and with the Transatlantic Sessions since 2007. His style of Irish traditional music often incorporates jazz, funk, and African and Indian rhythmic influences. In 2018, Mike released his fifth solo album, ARC; The Wishing Tree with John Doyle and John McCusker; and Dog in the Fog with Dezi Donnelly.

The pandemic has forced humanity into an involuntary state of uncertainty that may last a long time. This is troubling, of course, but, as with any of life’s terribly sad moments, is not without redemptive possibility. We are challenged to find a new comfort level with uncertainty as a more constant companion. 

Like everyone, we at Irish Arts Center are entering a new phase of grappling with all of this. We still don’t know when it will be safe or allowable to gather in groups for live performing arts experiences. We continue to innovate our digital programming and prepare for our magnificent new building that awaits us, soon enough we hope. We develop scenarios and contingency plans. 

And we challenge ourselves to lean into the moment. For this, as ever, we rely on the artists. 

To that end, we have commissioned more than two dozen artists reflecting a range of perspectives across our artistic community, to create short works that respond to the idea of finding grace in uncertainty, to find meaning in the chaos, and perhaps even some redemption, as we recognize the fear and sadness we feel. 

In his work On the Transmigration of Souls, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic just weeks after 9/11, John Adams sought to create a “memory space” for those who suffered loss of life, of loved ones, of innocence, and to evoke the feeling “that we are all united by a common bond of humanity.” 

In a similar spirit, we wish to inspire a volume of artistic responses that might form a kind of tapestry of emotion, a chronicle of the moment, work that can be appreciated now and for the long-term.

The common bond of humanity unites these artists—and will carry us all through this moment.