Fusion occurs when elements of Irish traditional music are combined with other musical traditions. Traditional Irish music features include a repeated last note, modal scales, lack of dynamics, ornamentation, and unaccompanied performance using traditional Irish instruments and dances. Popular fusions include Irish traditional music combined with rock, classical, jazz, pop, world music, and hip hop. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin is a composer and performer who studied classical music but fuses Irish traditional music with jazz and classical elements in his pieces. He combines classical features like piano, orchestra, dynamics, and scales with Irish elements such as ornamentation and dance rhythms, and jazz elements including improvisation, syncopated rhyth

1. Celtic Fusion

2. FusionFusion occurs when Irish performers and composers mix elements from other traditions with Irish musicTraditional Irish features:Last note repeatedModalNo dynamicsOrnamentationPerformance unaccompaniedUse of traditional Irish instruments and dances are other features of traditional Irish music

3. FusionFusion is heard when non-traditional features and instrumentsare combined in pieces with more traditional elementsPopular fusions occur between:Irish tradand rock (Horslips’ Dearg Doom)

4. FusionIrish tradand classical (Shaun Davey’s Granuaile Suite)

5. FusionIrish tradand jazz (Micheál Ó Súilleabháin’sOicheNollag)

6. FusionIrish tradand pop (The Corrs’ Runaway)

7. FusionIrish tradand ethnic traditions (Afro Celt Sound System’s Release)

8. FusionEven Irish tradand hip hop (House of Pain)

9. Mícheál Ó SúilleabháinBorn in Tipperary in 1950Studied music in UCC and Queen’sNow Chair of Music at University of Limerick where he founded the Irish World Music CentreAlso has a very successful career as a performer and composer who fuses Irish music with Jazz and Classical sounds

10. Mícheál Ó SúilleabháinMícheál Ó Súilleabháin would have had a very classical style of training in music while he was a student in UCC in the 1970sHe was trained to play the piano and harpsichordHe mixes his love for Irish music with his classical training in his pieces and has developed a unique style as a performer and composer

11. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin Classical FeaturesClassical elements in his music include: the frequent use of the piano (heard in OicheNollagand Fiach an MhadaRua)

12. the inclusion of orchestra on occasion (Between Worlds and (Must be more) Crispy)

13. the use of dynamics and expression (The Pretty Milkmaid)