George Sprengelmeyer, associate chair of the department of visual and performing arts and associate professor of music at Quinnipiac University, will lecture and perform at Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac, 3011 Whitney Ave., at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 29.
Sprengelmeyer will discuss techniques for arranging the melodies of the legendary Irish harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan, who traveled the Irish countryside for about 50 years during the Baroque era composing music for wealthy patrons. Since his death in 1738, the harper has become an iconic figure in Irish history and his melodies are now seen as the most important ancient Irish compositions. This event will include a performance of “A Celtic Suite,” several arrangements made by Sprengelmeyer for the guitar.
Sprengelmeyer earned his doctor of musical arts degree in guitar performance from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, becoming only the second individual in the history of the nation’s oldest music conservatory to earn this degree. Most recently, Sprengelmeyer’s research interest has turned toward Irish Baroque harp music. In 2013, he analyzed the original sources for O’Carolan’s music located in Boston, Dublin and Belfast. In 2014, he presented a lecture on O’Carolan’s music for the Scottish studies program and a performance/workshop for the guitar program of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To register, visit www.ighm.org.