July 20, 2010

The Francis O’Neill Cylinders release update

Filed under: Collections, Irish Traditional Music — Tags: , , — Jeff Ksiazek @ 3:27 pm

It was a busy spring for WIMA and has been a very busy summer! We’ve got some great news to share!

WIMA is pleased to announced that on August 16, 2010, we’re officially releasing a double audio CD of the Dunn Family Collection recordings called The Francis O’Neill Cylinders: Thirty-two Recordings of Irish Traditional Music in America circa 1904. We’ll simultaneously release a dedicated website, The Dunn Family Collection: Francis O’Neill Cylinders, featuring online versions of images, manuscripts, and historical information from the Dunn Family Collection, as well as streaming versions of all the Francis O’Neill cylinders. Keep your eyes on our website, http://www.irishfest.com/archives, and Facebook page for links to purchase the CD and study the collection sometime in early August.

We’ve taken word about this fine collection on the road the past few months. Director Barry Stapleton presented a program about the Dunn Family Collection at the 44th annual conference of the Association for Record Sound Collections in New Orleans in May. I recently returned from a trip to the Catskills Irish Arts Week where I presented information about the collection, as well as unveiling several of the remastered recordings.

Barry and I will launch the CD and website at the 2010 Milwaukee Irish Fest Summer School on Monday night, August 16 from 7 to 9pm. Feel free to contact us about the launch or visit the Summer School site for more details: http://www.irishfest.com/schools/summerschool.php

Expect more updates in the next week or two!

-Jeff Ksiazek, archivist

February 22, 2010

Dunn Family Collection: 2010 projects

Filed under: Collections, Irish Traditional Music — Jeff Ksiazek @ 3:19 pm

We’re tackling some major projects here at WIMA during 2010, the biggest being a couple relating to the Dunn Family Collection.

The Dunn Family Collection was donated to the Ward Irish Music Archives (WIMA) in January 2007. The collection contains many artifacts from the life and times of Michael J. Dunn who immigrated to Milwaukee from Ireland in the 1880s. The items include musical manuscripts, instruments, photos, books, a Victrola and his Ancient Order of Hibernians uniform.

Micheal "Joe" Dunn and Michael J. Dunn, August 1911

Micheal "Joe" Dunn and Michael J. Dunn, August 1911

The cornerstone of this collection is the Francis O’Neill cylinders. Dunn was friends with O’Neill, and towards the end of O’Neill’s life he gave his friends many items from his vast musical collection. Whether the cylinders came to Dunn directly or through a mutual friend, Sgt. James Early, is unknown, but the cylinders were likely in the Dunn home on south 26th street in Milwaukee for over 80 years.

O’Neill was known for collecting Irish tunes from the musicians in Chicago. He published over 3,500 tunes through several publications, including the mammoth O’Neill’s Music of Ireland (1903). It was known that O’Neill had recorded some of these musicians sometime circa 1904, and that they had been given to Dunn. But many thought these cylinders were destroyed after Dunn’s death in 1935.

In 2003 Dr. David Dunn, Michael Dunn’s grandson, took one last look in the attic of his grandfather’s home before selling it and found the suitcase of these 32 cylinder recordings along with most of the artifacts in the Dunn Family Collection at WIMA.

So what’s in store for the Dunn Family Collection? We’re currently developing a website to give the public online access to the majority of the collection, including the ability to listen to the cylinder recordings. The recordings themselves are being mastered, and  the pitch and speed of the transfers are being compared to one of the original sets of uilleann pipes used by Patrick Touhey on the recordings. We’ll also be releasing a CD of the cylinders, along with more information about the collection and musicians involved.

Stay tuned to the blog for more updates as WIMA works on these projects!

-Jeff Ksiazek, archivist